1 00:00:13,94 --> 00:00:19,48 Well thank you and if I were you I would be barbecuing in my backyard and not in 2 00:00:19,49 --> 00:00:20,22 here such 3 00:00:20,23 --> 00:00:29,14 a beautiful day in Seattle. Happy May Day everyone. It's 4 00:00:29,29 --> 00:00:34,84 it's really an honor to be here at town hall one of the great venues that we have 5 00:00:34,85 --> 00:00:37,82 in this country for the expression of independent thought and 6 00:00:37,83 --> 00:00:43,37 a focus on ideas that are meant to empower people to make decisions that will help 7 00:00:43,37 --> 00:00:46,66 . And act positive change in our country and around the world and it's 8 00:00:46,67 --> 00:00:50,83 a real honor to work also with Elliott Bay Books I mean we have to defend 9 00:00:50,84 --> 00:00:54,35 independent publishers and independent bookstores and I know that there's 10 00:00:54,36 --> 00:00:57,44 a big corporation in this town that is involved with publishing in one way or 11 00:00:57,45 --> 00:01:00,78 another but we have to support our independent bookstores to keep them alive 12 00:01:01,24 --> 00:01:08,23 of the. First time 13 00:01:08,24 --> 00:01:12,25 that I came to Seattle was actually in one thousand nine hundred nine during the 14 00:01:12,30 --> 00:01:17,66 protests that that erupted to confront the meeting of the World Trade Organization 15 00:01:17,67 --> 00:01:21,39 and it was the first time that I actually got teargassed it would certainly 16 00:01:21,40 --> 00:01:23,53 wouldn't be the last but it was 17 00:01:23,54 --> 00:01:30,50 a really formative moment in in my life because I was relatively new to 18 00:01:30,51 --> 00:01:35,75 journalism I actually came accidentally into being 19 00:01:35,76 --> 00:01:40,57 a reporter. I was working at a homeless shelter in Washington D.C. 20 00:01:40,58 --> 00:01:46,11 In the mid ninety's and I was sort of washing the floors and cleaning toilets and 21 00:01:46,53 --> 00:01:52,04 taking guys who were Vietnam veterans who were on the streets to try to help them 22 00:01:52,05 --> 00:01:55,55 fill out paperwork to get their benefits and I listen to 23 00:01:55,56 --> 00:01:59,15 a tremendous amount of talk radio and I would listen to right wing radio and I 24 00:01:59,16 --> 00:02:04,61 listen to progressive radio and and one day I remember I heard this this woman you 25 00:02:04,62 --> 00:02:09,51 know through my headphones who was reading these news headlines from around the 26 00:02:09,52 --> 00:02:13,13 world and she was describing the rebellion against the U.S. 27 00:02:13,14 --> 00:02:18,41 Backed dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko and interviewing the guerrillas who were 28 00:02:18,42 --> 00:02:23,79 fighting to try to overthrow his regime and hearing about the U.S. 29 00:02:23,80 --> 00:02:29,21 Economic sanctions on Iraq and framing them as an undeclared economic war against 30 00:02:29,26 --> 00:02:34,29 not the regime of Saddam Hussein but of ordinary civilians who were stuck between 31 00:02:34,30 --> 00:02:39,66 their own dictatorship and the sort of and will of American power economically and 32 00:02:39,67 --> 00:02:44,53 otherwise in the so-called no fly zone bombings people forget that. President 33 00:02:44,54 --> 00:02:48,90 Clinton initiated the longest sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam in Iraq 34 00:02:49,40 --> 00:02:53,33 under the guise of protecting the Kurds of the north and the Shiite population of 35 00:02:53,34 --> 00:02:56,87 the South and so I heard this woman describing on the radio all of these things 36 00:02:56,88 --> 00:03:01,39 that I had never heard about before and I said is this person and waiting until and 37 00:03:01,40 --> 00:03:01,96 then she goes to 38 00:03:01,97 --> 00:03:05,63 a break in her show and she says You're listening to Democracy Now we'll be back in 39 00:03:05,64 --> 00:03:12,58 a minute. And. Of course it was. It was Amy Goodman and I had 40 00:03:12,59 --> 00:03:13,29 never taken 41 00:03:13,30 --> 00:03:18,23 a journalism class in my life I you know I wasn't much for college I like to say I 42 00:03:18,24 --> 00:03:21,47 was unrolled at the University of Wisconsin and I don't say that I went to the 43 00:03:21,48 --> 00:03:26,52 University of Wisconsin and so I started this sort of relentless campaign to be 44 00:03:26,53 --> 00:03:30,30 a part of what she was doing and I knew that I wanted to be 45 00:03:30,34 --> 00:03:34,71 a part of it somehow and I started writing her actual old fashioned letters with 46 00:03:34,72 --> 00:03:39,15 a pen and sending them to her and you know I remember in one of them I said if you 47 00:03:39,44 --> 00:03:41,60 you know if you have windows a wash your windows if you have 48 00:03:41,61 --> 00:03:44,89 a cattle feed your cat you know I just want to help in any way I can I didn't 49 00:03:44,90 --> 00:03:48,91 imagine I could ever do anything real or substantive for the show but I just wanted 50 00:03:48,92 --> 00:03:53,89 to support it and eventually I lived in New York and was was volunteering and 51 00:03:53,90 --> 00:03:56,93 trying to figure out what was going on with my life and I basically started 52 00:03:56,94 --> 00:04:01,72 stalking AMY GOODMAN And I'd hear that she was speaking somewhere I would go and I 53 00:04:01,73 --> 00:04:06,11 would come up and I think you know eventually she had to I think decide whether to 54 00:04:06,32 --> 00:04:06,49 get 55 00:04:06,50 --> 00:04:10,93 a restraining order against me or like let me come in and volunteer so eventually I 56 00:04:10,94 --> 00:04:15,12 was Amy said OK you can come in and I remember going to this community radio 57 00:04:15,13 --> 00:04:19,06 station in New York and at the time it was in this was on the thirty fifth floor of 58 00:04:19,07 --> 00:04:21,75 a building I'm from Milwaukee Wisconsin I had never seen such 59 00:04:21,76 --> 00:04:26,65 a structure across the street from Madison Square Garden and I went in and I didn't 60 00:04:26,66 --> 00:04:29,92 understand how community radio stations worked and I thought the whole thing was 61 00:04:29,93 --> 00:04:33,61 the AMY GOODMAN operation so I walk in and there's multiple studios and there's 62 00:04:33,62 --> 00:04:36,71 people running around I'm thinking this is sort of what I imagine there's the 63 00:04:36,72 --> 00:04:39,88 newsroom and those are the people that are on the phone with the guys in Congo and 64 00:04:39,89 --> 00:04:44,15 that's the people that are splicing the tape about the report from Iraq and. And so 65 00:04:44,16 --> 00:04:47,83 I'm there and Amy comes rushing out with papers and reel to reel tapes and just 66 00:04:47,84 --> 00:04:51,18 sort of disheveled and she's got headphones hanging off of her head and she's like 67 00:04:51,42 --> 00:04:55,89 Oh right right right and she takes me to this basically closet and sits me down in 68 00:04:55,90 --> 00:04:59,93 the. What I thought was just a closet and it's stacks of newspapers in like 69 00:04:59,94 --> 00:05:04,36 a dot matrix printer and some kind of Adam seven machine passing as 70 00:05:04,37 --> 00:05:08,91 a computer and she's like you're just clipped every article out of the newspaper 71 00:05:08,92 --> 00:05:12,59 stack here about Iraq and at the time the Clinton administration was gearing up to 72 00:05:12,60 --> 00:05:16,30 bomb Iraq which it ultimately did in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight bombing 73 00:05:16,31 --> 00:05:17,97 Baghdad so I sat there for 74 00:05:17,98 --> 00:05:22,47 a pipe six seven hours clipping away and then Amy eventually comes in at the end of 75 00:05:22,48 --> 00:05:26,70 the day and she sits down and she said So how did it go when I present her with all 76 00:05:26,71 --> 00:05:29,89 of these articles and then I just said well you know where is your office and she 77 00:05:29,90 --> 00:05:33,42 says you're in it and it was it had no windows and it was this tiny little space 78 00:05:33,43 --> 00:05:37,88 and so I learned journalism. As 79 00:05:37,89 --> 00:05:42,31 a trade as an apprentice the way you would study to be a plumber an electrician or 80 00:05:42,32 --> 00:05:44,27 a carpenter and never took 81 00:05:44,28 --> 00:05:47,71 a journalism class and I think it's part of why I've stuck with it is because my 82 00:05:47,72 --> 00:05:50,53 gateway to it was it was something that I believed in it wasn't like 83 00:05:50,54 --> 00:05:54,52 a career or I was thinking you know how can I get these three internships to lead 84 00:05:54,53 --> 00:05:56,69 to this job that's going to put me on T.V. 85 00:05:56,70 --> 00:05:58,34 Or make me money it was it was 86 00:05:58,35 --> 00:06:03,66 a way of life and it was what I believed in doing and you know I sort of 87 00:06:03,67 --> 00:06:07,72 accidentally ended up writing this book about Blackwater because I had gone down to 88 00:06:07,73 --> 00:06:12,33 New Orleans in the aftermath of the flooding of the city during Hurricane Katrina 89 00:06:12,72 --> 00:06:16,92 and I met these Blackwater guys who were patrolling the streets of the U.S. 90 00:06:16,93 --> 00:06:21,42 City with them for assault rifles and some of them had been in Iraq and they asked 91 00:06:21,43 --> 00:06:24,41 them what they were doing and they said we're here to confront criminals and stop 92 00:06:24,42 --> 00:06:28,56 looters and I followed these guys around for a while and ended up doing 93 00:06:28,57 --> 00:06:31,78 a story about them and then I did another story about them and I started to dig 94 00:06:31,79 --> 00:06:35,38 into who owns that company and what's their connection to the White House and for 95 00:06:35,39 --> 00:06:39,18 me it sort of represented so much of what was happening in the country at the time 96 00:06:39,19 --> 00:06:43,88 where you had these war contractors that had profited off of the initial stay. Ages 97 00:06:43,89 --> 00:06:48,68 of the invasion and occupation of Iraq coming back to the United States and 98 00:06:48,69 --> 00:06:52,66 disaster profiteering they went from war profiteering to disaster profiteering and 99 00:06:52,97 --> 00:06:57,43 kind of had their Baghdad on the by you in New Orleans and Blackwater made it well 100 00:06:57,44 --> 00:07:01,46 over seventy million dollars on those contracts there no bid contracts for the 101 00:07:01,47 --> 00:07:04,77 Department of Homeland Security and I became obsessed with that company and was 102 00:07:04,78 --> 00:07:09,43 writing article after article after article and I had this. Fellowship at The 103 00:07:09,44 --> 00:07:13,16 Nation Institute that Naomi Klein that sort of convinced them to give me and it was 104 00:07:13,52 --> 00:07:17,22 twenty five thousand dollars fellowship which may sound great if you're an aspiring 105 00:07:17,23 --> 00:07:21,90 journalist with no benefits before taxes so it came out to you know I made 106 00:07:21,91 --> 00:07:22,66 a few hundred dollars 107 00:07:22,67 --> 00:07:27,28 a month basically and I loved every moment of it and I'm writing these articles and 108 00:07:27,29 --> 00:07:31,29 you know the nation liked them and Katrina Vanden Heuvel the editor finally sat me 109 00:07:31,30 --> 00:07:34,80 down one day and she said Jeremy This is great what you're doing it's fantastic 110 00:07:34,81 --> 00:07:35,63 reporting but we are 111 00:07:35,64 --> 00:07:39,86 a small poor weekly magazine we can't publish an article on the same private 112 00:07:39,87 --> 00:07:44,04 company every single week in the magazine so you either need to diversify your beat 113 00:07:44,05 --> 00:07:45,87 or write a book and so I ended up writing 114 00:07:45,88 --> 00:07:50,08 a book and I thought I'd be selling it out of my backpack and then it ended up you 115 00:07:50,09 --> 00:07:54,09 know on the New York Times list and sort of you know things kind of turned upside 116 00:07:54,10 --> 00:07:59,28 down but I got deep into this world of covert operations and what was sort of 117 00:07:59,29 --> 00:08:03,41 amazing to me given my orientation and where I came from is that after the 118 00:08:03,42 --> 00:08:08,72 Blackwater book came out I started to get e-mails and phone calls or people would 119 00:08:08,73 --> 00:08:14,53 show up at my event at my events who had been in Iraq or Afghanistan with 120 00:08:14,75 --> 00:08:20,15 Blackwater guys and they were Navy SEALs or delta force or army rangers or they 121 00:08:20,16 --> 00:08:23,77 were helicopter pilots or they were colonels that had they were in charge of 122 00:08:23,78 --> 00:08:26,72 conventional operations and you know they would say it's 123 00:08:26,76 --> 00:08:29,86 a similar thing all of them you know I don't really care for your politics very 124 00:08:29,87 --> 00:08:33,57 much but you were one hundred percent right about Blackwater they didn't like them 125 00:08:33,58 --> 00:08:35,96 either and I ended up getting to know 126 00:08:35,100 --> 00:08:40,96 a bunch of guys from the special operations community and so the book that I wrote 127 00:08:40,97 --> 00:08:43,07 Dirty Wars is it tells 128 00:08:43,08 --> 00:08:47,61 a couple of stories on the one hand it tracks the the men and sometimes women but 129 00:08:47,62 --> 00:08:53,27 largely it's men who are doing the killing in these operations from the CIA and 130 00:08:53,28 --> 00:08:57,43 from the military's elite force called the Joint Special Operations Command but it 131 00:08:57,44 --> 00:09:02,63 also tells the story of the civilians who live in countries like Yemen or Somalia 132 00:09:02,64 --> 00:09:08,65 or Afghanistan who are on the other side of these operations and in between. Or 133 00:09:08,66 --> 00:09:14,48 stories of warlords in Somalia who are on the CIA payroll and are being paid to 134 00:09:14,82 --> 00:09:19,35 hunt down and kill or capture people that have been designated as enemies of the 135 00:09:19,36 --> 00:09:24,69 United States or people that are or members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in 136 00:09:24,70 --> 00:09:30,83 Yemen and the spine of the book the real story that runs up the center of it is the 137 00:09:30,84 --> 00:09:31,34 story of 138 00:09:31,35 --> 00:09:38,17 a man named Anwar Allah Locky who I'm sure many of you have heard of but I in 139 00:09:38,21 --> 00:09:44,93 researching his life and ultimately his death I was welcomed into his family's home 140 00:09:45,25 --> 00:09:52,21 and given access to the writings the diaries the home videos of his family 141 00:09:52,22 --> 00:09:57,18 going back many generations and I was also allowed to interview all of the members 142 00:09:57,19 --> 00:10:01,93 of his family oftentimes when the stories are done about Anwar Locky only his 143 00:10:01,94 --> 00:10:06,63 father speaks but I was allowed to speak to the female members of the family as 144 00:10:06,64 --> 00:10:10,76 well which in that culture is rather unheard of but I was allowed to sit down and 145 00:10:11,14 --> 00:10:16,03 talk with Anwar Locky sister and with his mother and to be around his nieces and 146 00:10:16,04 --> 00:10:22,89 his nephews and I want to begin tonight discussing the story of Anwar Lockie 147 00:10:23,31 --> 00:10:29,75 almost in reverse order because it's it's important to understand that when Anwar 148 00:10:29,76 --> 00:10:35,08 Alok he was targeted for assassination by President Obama we crossed 149 00:10:35,09 --> 00:10:38,85 a line that's going to be very difficult to back up from we have 150 00:10:38,86 --> 00:10:41,95 a popular Democratic president who is 151 00:10:41,96 --> 00:10:47,82 a constitutional lawyer by trade who is the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize who is 152 00:10:47,83 --> 00:10:52,39 going to go down in history as the man who solidified assassination as 153 00:10:52,40 --> 00:10:58,43 a central acceptable in the eyes of Washington part of U.S. 154 00:10:58,44 --> 00:11:00,60 National security policy or what's called U.S. 155 00:11:00,61 --> 00:11:07,53 National security policy. And on the the afternoon of September thirtieth 156 00:11:07,54 --> 00:11:14,27 two thousand and eleven President Obama was briefed by Admiral William McRaven 157 00:11:14,77 --> 00:11:16,53 who was the head of U.S. 158 00:11:16,54 --> 00:11:19,44 Special operations forces and for 159 00:11:19,45 --> 00:11:22,94 a long time had been the commander and Deputy Commander of j sock of the Joint 160 00:11:22,95 --> 00:11:24,32 Special Operations Command 161 00:11:24,72 --> 00:11:29,86 a man who had spent his entire military career in the shadows conducting covert 162 00:11:29,87 --> 00:11:34,29 operations he was an original member of SEAL Team Six helped the Bush 163 00:11:34,30 --> 00:11:38,66 administration early on to craft their targeted killing program in the aftermath of 164 00:11:38,67 --> 00:11:42,63 nine eleven and then rose through the ranks and became one of the most powerful 165 00:11:42,64 --> 00:11:44,22 military figures in modern U.S. 166 00:11:44,23 --> 00:11:49,07 History and on this day he was briefing President Obama on this high value target 167 00:11:49,08 --> 00:11:53,34 that they had been hunting for more than two years and that target was unique in 168 00:11:53,35 --> 00:11:57,11 that he was an American citizen and he had not been charged with 169 00:11:57,12 --> 00:12:02,64 a crime he had not been indicted there was no request for the United States to have 170 00:12:02,65 --> 00:12:07,25 him extradited from Yemen and they presented the president with this briefing that 171 00:12:07,26 --> 00:12:13,20 they have found definitively where Anwar Locky was located and President Obama had 172 00:12:13,21 --> 00:12:19,78 already served as the prosecutor the judge and the jury in sentencing him to death 173 00:12:20,14 --> 00:12:21,23 and now he was faced with 174 00:12:21,24 --> 00:12:28,14 a decision on whether or not to become his executioner Anwar Locky is probably 175 00:12:28,15 --> 00:12:34,83 best known by most Americans as the man who appears on You Tube clips 176 00:12:35,45 --> 00:12:39,57 or in photographs wearing a camouflage jacket in front of 177 00:12:39,58 --> 00:12:46,36 a black flag. Calling on young Muslims to fight against the 178 00:12:46,37 --> 00:12:51,96 United States or to come and join the fronts of jihad in Afghanistan or Yemen or 179 00:12:51,97 --> 00:12:57,30 elsewhere and maybe you've heard that he called Major Nidal Hassan who conducted 180 00:12:57,31 --> 00:13:00,17 the massacre at Fort Hood Texas that after that happened he called him 181 00:13:00,18 --> 00:13:06,27 a hero. And he called for other Muslims in the military to take that same action 182 00:13:06,28 --> 00:13:09,37 and shoot their fellow soldiers so that they couldn't deploy to the wars in Iraq 183 00:13:09,38 --> 00:13:11,72 and Afghanistan or maybe you know about 184 00:13:11,73 --> 00:13:16,44 a story that has roots here locally in Seattle when Anwar Locky named 185 00:13:16,50 --> 00:13:21,52 a young cartoonist named Molly Norris in an article for Inspire magazine in 186 00:13:21,53 --> 00:13:26,07 a list that he called the hit list and called on people to specifically go and 187 00:13:26,08 --> 00:13:31,12 assassinate this young woman Molly Norris along with other cartoonists from around 188 00:13:31,13 --> 00:13:37,84 the world who had drawn what I think were very clearly derogatory images of the 189 00:13:37,85 --> 00:13:41,11 Prophet Muhammad that I'm sure were offensive to many Muslims but I lucky said it 190 00:13:41,12 --> 00:13:45,29 was worthy of death and called specifically for her to be killed those are the 191 00:13:45,30 --> 00:13:50,12 things that we hear along with the idea that he was behind the Christmas Day bomb 192 00:13:50,13 --> 00:13:55,11 plot when whom are for all of this deranged young Nigerian guy tried to bring down 193 00:13:55,12 --> 00:13:55,53 a U.S. 194 00:13:55,54 --> 00:14:00,98 Airplane over the city of Detroit in Christmas Day two thousand and nine there's 195 00:14:00,99 --> 00:14:02,22 a lot of smoke around and more 196 00:14:02,23 --> 00:14:07,74 a lucky maybe Anwar Locky was everything that every leak the White House has put 197 00:14:07,75 --> 00:14:11,27 out there every leak that the Pentagon has put out maybe he was every single thing 198 00:14:11,28 --> 00:14:15,52 they said about it maybe he was plotting to poison our water supplies maybe he 199 00:14:15,62 --> 00:14:21,56 directed. To try to take down that aircraft he certainly called for the 200 00:14:21,57 --> 00:14:22,63 assassination of 201 00:14:22,85 --> 00:14:28,42 a young woman in Seattle Washington it's quite possible that Anwar Locky did things 202 00:14:28,43 --> 00:14:33,98 that were absolutely to their core criminal in nature this story is not about who 203 00:14:33,99 --> 00:14:36,14 is Anwar Locky it's about who we are as 204 00:14:36,15 --> 00:14:41,84 a nation. We are defined not by how we treat the powerful or the popular or the 205 00:14:41,85 --> 00:14:46,09 rich we're defined by how we treat the poorest of our people the least of our 206 00:14:46,10 --> 00:14:51,04 people and perhaps most importantly the most reprehensible of our citizens that's 207 00:14:51,05 --> 00:14:56,46 going to define our values as a society and who we are and when we enter 208 00:14:56,47 --> 00:14:57,83 a world where 209 00:14:57,84 --> 00:15:02,37 a constitutional law professor Nobel Peace Prize winning president declares in 210 00:15:02,38 --> 00:15:06,64 a secret process after terror Tuesday meetings that this these Americans are not 211 00:15:06,78 --> 00:15:09,80 worthy of having a trial even though they're not shooting at U.S. 212 00:15:09,81 --> 00:15:14,30 Soldiers on a battlefield they're not actually firing at the U.S. 213 00:15:14,31 --> 00:15:17,49 Embassy but they're potentially engaged in plots if we don't have 214 00:15:17,50 --> 00:15:21,06 a robust enough justice system to handle those people then we should stop 215 00:15:21,07 --> 00:15:24,04 projecting that image to the world we should say we're actually 216 00:15:24,05 --> 00:15:28,64 a different country because occasionally we allow the posse to you know take out 217 00:15:28,65 --> 00:15:29,73 their torches and round up 218 00:15:29,74 --> 00:15:34,48 a person and then give them just sort of citizens justice it's about who we are as 219 00:15:34,49 --> 00:15:35,86 a society not who are 220 00:15:35,90 --> 00:15:39,66 a lot he was but his story is revealing on that question of who we are as 221 00:15:39,67 --> 00:15:44,33 a society because he was so much more than the cartoonish image of the guy in the 222 00:15:44,34 --> 00:15:50,35 camouflage jacket in front of the black flag calling for armed jihad and Mara Locky 223 00:15:50,56 --> 00:15:54,97 was born in Las Cruces New Mexico in one nine hundred seventy one his father is an 224 00:15:54,98 --> 00:15:59,17 amazing man I've gotten to know him very well I think he's an admirable man I think 225 00:15:59,18 --> 00:15:59,33 he's 226 00:15:59,34 --> 00:16:03,45 a just man and I think he did not raise his son to become the guy that we've seen 227 00:16:03,46 --> 00:16:07,36 in those videos or the guy that called for Molly Norris to be killed Molly Norris 228 00:16:07,37 --> 00:16:08,70 by the way had to go into 229 00:16:08,95 --> 00:16:13,28 a relocation program and move because of what happened when 230 00:16:13,29 --> 00:16:18,05 a locket published it. NASRA Locky Anwar a lucky father was 231 00:16:18,06 --> 00:16:22,83 a Fulbright scholar who came to the United States in one nine hundred sixty six and 232 00:16:22,84 --> 00:16:27,74 he learned English in Lawrence Kansas and he lived with an evangelical Christian 233 00:16:27,75 --> 00:16:31,78 family and he showed me his essays from when he first came to the United States and 234 00:16:31,79 --> 00:16:35,85 was learning English and he wrote this incredible essay about how he was so honored 235 00:16:35,86 --> 00:16:38,04 to be accepted into this program to be 236 00:16:38,05 --> 00:16:40,28 a student in the United States because he viewed the U.S. 237 00:16:40,54 --> 00:16:45,01 As this great bastion of progressivism and he wanted to get an education in the 238 00:16:45,02 --> 00:16:50,83 United States and then return to his own country as an agricultural engineer to try 239 00:16:50,84 --> 00:16:55,55 to help address the very severe water crisis that to this day plagues Yemen Yemen 240 00:16:55,56 --> 00:16:59,28 may be the first country in the world to entirely run out of water and he wanted to 241 00:16:59,29 --> 00:17:03,32 dedicate his life to addressing that issue and so he came here in sixty six and 242 00:17:03,33 --> 00:17:07,46 ended up going to New Mexico State University and he got several degrees and 243 00:17:07,47 --> 00:17:09,03 eventually earned his Ph D. 244 00:17:09,87 --> 00:17:13,52 And while he was here he was able to bring his young wife over and they had 245 00:17:13,53 --> 00:17:18,59 a baby boy named Anwar and he told me when I was born in Las Cruces General 246 00:17:18,60 --> 00:17:21,79 Hospital that in those days you could still smoke cigars and he handed out it's 247 00:17:21,80 --> 00:17:28,09 a boy cigars to everyone in the hospital with him and the family ended up moving to 248 00:17:28,13 --> 00:17:33,31 the Twin Cities Minneapolis St Paul in Minnesota and Anwar went to school there and 249 00:17:33,32 --> 00:17:34,74 there's pictures of him pointing on 250 00:17:34,75 --> 00:17:39,56 a globe to where Yemen is on the on the map and he couldn't pronounce his teacher's 251 00:17:39,57 --> 00:17:44,07 name in first grade he just called her Mrs and then went to Disneyland and as far 252 00:17:44,08 --> 00:17:48,38 as the were concerned they were it was an American story they were immigrants they 253 00:17:48,39 --> 00:17:54,31 wanted to raise their family if not in the United States to grow up in the shadow 254 00:17:54,32 --> 00:17:55,66 of what they considered to be 255 00:17:55,94 --> 00:18:02,25 a society based on fundamental freedoms and of hope. Eventually Nasra Locky was 256 00:18:02,26 --> 00:18:04,00 called back to Yemen to serve as 257 00:18:04,01 --> 00:18:08,17 a government minister and he moved his young family back with him and he ended up 258 00:18:08,66 --> 00:18:09,13 starting 259 00:18:09,14 --> 00:18:12,81 a Department of Agricultural Engineering at the University of Sana and it was 260 00:18:12,82 --> 00:18:15,62 largely built up with money from the United States from the U.S. 261 00:18:15,63 --> 00:18:19,28 Agency for International Development and Anwar went to 262 00:18:19,32 --> 00:18:23,71 a school that his father and some others had set up and it was 263 00:18:23,72 --> 00:18:26,86 a school that was in both English and Arabic his first language was English and he 264 00:18:26,87 --> 00:18:31,68 went to school with the children of the powerful the most powerful people in Yemen 265 00:18:31,94 --> 00:18:33,41 the family of the U.S. 266 00:18:33,42 --> 00:18:37,54 Backed dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh and he ended up going to school with the 267 00:18:37,55 --> 00:18:42,37 children and nephews of the president who would go on to run Yemen's intelligence 268 00:18:42,38 --> 00:18:46,90 agencies and then collude with the United States government in hunting down and 269 00:18:46,91 --> 00:18:47,85 attempting to kill 270 00:18:48,34 --> 00:18:52,73 a Lockie. He graduates from high school and comes to the United States to go to 271 00:18:53,18 --> 00:18:58,15 university in Colorado and when he arrives in the United States it was right on the 272 00:18:58,16 --> 00:19:03,05 eve of the one nine hundred ninety one Gulf War And where where of course anyone 273 00:19:03,06 --> 00:19:07,49 who was around at the time remembers what happened the U.S. 274 00:19:07,50 --> 00:19:12,44 Destroyed the civilian infrastructure of one of the more modern societies in the 275 00:19:12,45 --> 00:19:17,60 Middle East and systematically targeted and took out the civilian infrastructure 276 00:19:17,61 --> 00:19:22,53 and rolled the clock back on Baghdad hundreds of years and Anwar Locky was not 277 00:19:22,54 --> 00:19:26,45 a particularly religious guy at the time but he was politicized as many young 278 00:19:26,46 --> 00:19:30,65 people were at the time Muslim and non Muslim alike by that war and he started 279 00:19:30,66 --> 00:19:34,84 going to organizing meetings and eventually he was invited by the EMA at 280 00:19:34,85 --> 00:19:37,01 a local mosque near is university to come and give 281 00:19:37,02 --> 00:19:40,89 a speech and when Anwar came to give this speech the mom said you're so you are 282 00:19:40,90 --> 00:19:41,13 such 283 00:19:41,14 --> 00:19:44,88 a gifted orator will you come back again and he started speaking at that mosque and 284 00:19:44,89 --> 00:19:48,49 he started to attend services and he became more and more religious and eventually 285 00:19:48,50 --> 00:19:52,61 he decided he didn't want to study and to nearing anymore he wanted to study to be 286 00:19:52,62 --> 00:19:58,21 an e-mail. And so he changed course in his life and did become an e-mail and he 287 00:19:58,22 --> 00:20:02,74 lived in San Diego for a while and eventually got a job as the at 288 00:20:02,75 --> 00:20:09,69 a very large religious Center in Falls Church Virginia Darl hedgerow mosque and 289 00:20:09,70 --> 00:20:14,86 I remember the first time that I remember seeing Anwar Locky was shortly after nine 290 00:20:14,87 --> 00:20:20,69 eleven he was profiled by The Washington Post he was interviewed by N.P.R. 291 00:20:21,02 --> 00:20:25,44 By Ray Suarez on TALK OF THE NATION he was on The News Hour on P.B.S. 292 00:20:25,76 --> 00:20:28,70 And he was on these shows because I'm Lara Locky was considered 293 00:20:28,71 --> 00:20:33,92 a moderate who was making sense of the experience of so many American Muslims in 294 00:20:33,93 --> 00:20:38,30 the aftermath of the attack and being caught between wanting justice for what 295 00:20:38,31 --> 00:20:42,12 happened on nine eleven and wanting to see those who had done it brought to justice 296 00:20:42,35 --> 00:20:47,01 but also fearful of the bigotry that was being unleashed and the targeting of 297 00:20:47,02 --> 00:20:49,69 Muslims in the rounding up of people in the van. Bill is a man 298 00:20:49,70 --> 00:20:54,14 a tax on taxi drivers and businesses and the day after September eleventh 299 00:20:54,15 --> 00:20:57,07 a woman had stumbled into a lock his mosque after being beaten with 300 00:20:57,08 --> 00:21:00,83 a baseball bat because she was a Muslim and he was 301 00:21:00,88 --> 00:21:06,10 a man who was helping big media outlets make sense of what was happening in Muslim 302 00:21:06,11 --> 00:21:10,71 communities across the country and he was a man who was essentially 303 00:21:10,72 --> 00:21:15,01 a media star but he also was being harassed by the F.B.I. 304 00:21:15,60 --> 00:21:19,94 Interrogated because some of the nine eleven hijackers head on on some occasions 305 00:21:19,95 --> 00:21:23,81 attended one of his mosques in San Diego and another one in Virginia and they were 306 00:21:23,82 --> 00:21:26,05 putting pressure on him to flip and become an F.B.I. 307 00:21:26,06 --> 00:21:31,03 Informant and he's feeling all of the pressure that so many Muslims were feeling 308 00:21:31,04 --> 00:21:34,63 but he also had this secret life where he was being pressured by the F.B.I. 309 00:21:34,64 --> 00:21:38,95 And eventually he decides to leave the United States. And he leaves the United 310 00:21:38,96 --> 00:21:44,32 States as the invasion of Iraq is is mounting and it's becoming an inevitability 311 00:21:44,90 --> 00:21:45,81 and then you see 312 00:21:45,82 --> 00:21:51,65 a shift in the lock ease politics he became more radical as the U.S. 313 00:21:51,66 --> 00:21:57,91 Wars became more entrenched as we saw the images coming out of Guantanamo and Abu 314 00:21:57,92 --> 00:22:04,15 Ghraib and the Iraq invasion turn from being this myth that Paul Wolfowitz put 315 00:22:04,16 --> 00:22:09,58 forward that they'll welcome us with flowers and it'll pay for itself and the 316 00:22:09,62 --> 00:22:13,68 fabricated pulling down of Saddam's statue and the false flag of victory being 317 00:22:14,42 --> 00:22:17,44 planted in the corpse of Iraq and then the civil war breaking out and 318 00:22:17,89 --> 00:22:23,41 a Lockie as the US wars expanded our Lockheed's radicalism deepen and he started to 319 00:22:23,42 --> 00:22:23,65 gain 320 00:22:23,66 --> 00:22:27,99 a huge following among English speaking Muslims around the world and he was speaking 321 00:22:28,00 --> 00:22:28,69 out about U.S. 322 00:22:28,70 --> 00:22:34,48 Support for the Israeli incursions into Palestine and he was speaking out against 323 00:22:34,49 --> 00:22:35,76 the threats that the U.S. 324 00:22:35,77 --> 00:22:40,58 Was making about going into Iran or going into Syria and he was 325 00:22:40,59 --> 00:22:42,71 a fond of quoting George Bush calling it 326 00:22:42,72 --> 00:22:48,29 a crusade and he was starting to have great influence and in two thousand and six 327 00:22:48,30 --> 00:22:53,01 he was living with his family in Sana trying to figure out what to do next just 328 00:22:53,02 --> 00:22:57,86 recording sermons when he was arrested on trumped up charges that he had intervened 329 00:22:57,87 --> 00:22:57,96 in 330 00:22:57,97 --> 00:23:04,22 a tribal dispute in Yemen and he gets put in prison for eighteen months seventeen of 331 00:23:04,23 --> 00:23:10,35 them in solitary confinement I was told by former senior Yemeni officials 332 00:23:11,00 --> 00:23:16,11 that when Anwar Locky was in prison there was so much pressure for him to be 333 00:23:16,12 --> 00:23:19,93 released that the Yemeni government asked the people who had put him there in the 334 00:23:19,94 --> 00:23:24,60 first place if they could let him go and those people were. Senior officials from 335 00:23:24,61 --> 00:23:25,88 the Bush administration and there was 336 00:23:25,89 --> 00:23:30,31 a meeting in Washington between the Yemeni ambassador to the U.S. 337 00:23:31,02 --> 00:23:35,70 One of the most powerful Saudis in the world Bandar Bush who is called Bandar Bush 338 00:23:35,71 --> 00:23:40,57 because he's so close to the Bush family and John Negroponte who at the time was 339 00:23:40,58 --> 00:23:46,38 the director of National Intelligence and Negra Ponce told the Yemeni official at 340 00:23:46,39 --> 00:23:49,03 the meeting that it was the position of the U.S. 341 00:23:49,04 --> 00:23:53,38 That they wanted Anwar Locky to be kept in prison for four or five years even 342 00:23:53,39 --> 00:23:58,82 without charge so that young Muslims would forget about him but eventually the 343 00:23:59,48 --> 00:24:02,69 pressure was too strong on the many government and they had to release 344 00:24:02,92 --> 00:24:07,57 a lock in when he came out he published his prison writings and they're fascinating 345 00:24:08,03 --> 00:24:12,64 they wouldn't allow him to have many books they gave him Shakespeare he hated 346 00:24:12,65 --> 00:24:19,15 Shakespeare they gave him Dickens and he loved Dickens he compared figures in the 347 00:24:19,16 --> 00:24:19,45 U.S. 348 00:24:19,46 --> 00:24:23,63 Government and the Yemeni government to characters like your riot he talked about 349 00:24:23,64 --> 00:24:30,11 the experience of Muslims as represented by some of the characters in Dickens but 350 00:24:30,12 --> 00:24:32,71 he also. Clearly was 351 00:24:32,72 --> 00:24:37,50 a changed man he was radicalized even further by that experience and when he came 352 00:24:37,51 --> 00:24:41,05 out his message was sharper than ever and he started 353 00:24:41,06 --> 00:24:46,77 a blog called on Mars blog and the Internet became his mosque and he began to 354 00:24:46,78 --> 00:24:51,21 celebrate the victories of Islamist movements around the world when the Islamic 355 00:24:51,22 --> 00:24:53,46 Courts Union overthrew the U.S. 356 00:24:53,47 --> 00:24:58,17 Backed warlords in Somalia he sent salutations not only to the Islamic Courts Union 357 00:24:58,18 --> 00:25:01,79 which was a Taliban like Coalition in Somalia but also to 358 00:25:02,08 --> 00:25:06,10 a group called al-Shabaab which eventually would go on to pledge its allegiance to 359 00:25:06,33 --> 00:25:10,81 al Qaeda he was answering questions about whether or not suicide bombing was 360 00:25:10,82 --> 00:25:15,83 acceptable under the teachings of the Koran and ultimately in an essay entitled 361 00:25:16,16 --> 00:25:22,11 suicide or martyrdom took the side that suicide bombing was acceptable and the U.S. 362 00:25:22,12 --> 00:25:27,48 Is putting this pressure on the Yemeni government to have him arrested and and 363 00:25:27,49 --> 00:25:32,09 eventually Anwar decides because he's being monitored by the Yemeni U.S. 364 00:25:32,10 --> 00:25:37,28 Backed Yemeni counterterrorism units to go underground and he leaves the capital of 365 00:25:37,29 --> 00:25:41,18 Sana and he goes to his family's tribal land which where we are it was very 366 00:25:41,19 --> 00:25:46,53 difficult for the Americans or the Yemeni forces to monitor him and in the middle 367 00:25:46,54 --> 00:25:50,75 of two thousand and nine his father was approached by the head of Yemen's 368 00:25:50,76 --> 00:25:56,42 intelligence service and told if you don't put on why our back in our prison or put 369 00:25:56,43 --> 00:25:59,85 him under some kind of house arrest the Americans have told us they're going to 370 00:25:59,86 --> 00:26:03,35 kill him with a drone and this is before anyone has alleged that 371 00:26:03,36 --> 00:26:08,40 a Lockie was involved with any act of terror plots that this family was told that 372 00:26:08,41 --> 00:26:13,09 because of your son's sermons and his words however offensive many of us may find 373 00:26:13,10 --> 00:26:17,03 them he had already been had 374 00:26:17,04 --> 00:26:20,00 a bull's eye placed on his head and 375 00:26:20,15 --> 00:26:24,93 a potential assassination order against him given and so his own father this 376 00:26:24,94 --> 00:26:25,45 professor 377 00:26:25,46 --> 00:26:29,12 a former governor former government minister travels to their province and says to 378 00:26:29,13 --> 00:26:33,89 his son. You have to come back to sign our the Americans are going to kill you with 379 00:26:33,90 --> 00:26:37,87 a drone and at the time remember this is mid two thousand and nine President Obama 380 00:26:37,88 --> 00:26:42,31 had already started to intensify the drone attacks on Pakistan there had not yet 381 00:26:42,32 --> 00:26:44,53 been a drone bombing in Yemen but it was 382 00:26:44,54 --> 00:26:49,76 a very real situation and Anwar had talked about it on his blog and Anwar Locky was 383 00:26:49,77 --> 00:26:54,63 so offended that his father would say this to me he basically said Are you an agent 384 00:26:54,64 --> 00:26:58,51 for the Americans now I'm not going to allow them to tell me which way to position 385 00:26:58,52 --> 00:27:03,39 my bed and he said I was born free and I'll die free and I don't want you to ever 386 00:27:03,43 --> 00:27:07,42 speak to me about this again and that was the last time that his father spoke to 387 00:27:07,43 --> 00:27:13,21 him after that Anwar left his wife and his three children with his family in Sana 388 00:27:13,22 --> 00:27:18,74 and he went underground and the hunt for Anwar Locky began and his children in 389 00:27:18,85 --> 00:27:23,26 Sana'a there are three of them the eldest was a boy and of the rock man 390 00:27:23,96 --> 00:27:27,79 a lucky who was born in Denver Colorado in one thousand nine hundred five and he 391 00:27:27,80 --> 00:27:32,80 was the sort of prized jewel of his grandparents and they adore him and they want 392 00:27:32,81 --> 00:27:36,96 him to go to the United States to get a college education and he's 393 00:27:36,97 --> 00:27:41,72 a normal goofy lanky teenager with this enormous after all that they're constantly 394 00:27:41,73 --> 00:27:46,43 telling him to cut and he has pictures on his Facebook page posing as 395 00:27:46,44 --> 00:27:50,33 a rapper and he's in the comic books and he's sort of the furthest thing from who 396 00:27:50,34 --> 00:27:55,32 his father was and so these kids are being raised by their grandparents their 397 00:27:55,33 --> 00:27:58,41 father is on the run they know that the U.S. 398 00:27:58,42 --> 00:28:01,33 Government is has told the Yemeni government we're going to kill him if you don't 399 00:28:01,34 --> 00:28:05,76 put him back in prison and while Anwar is making these audiotapes and videotapes 400 00:28:05,77 --> 00:28:12,47 and moving around the hinterlands of Yemen. Nidal Hasan commits his massacre at 401 00:28:12,48 --> 00:28:17,83 Fort Hood and it emerges that Anwar Locky had been in touch with him and the story 402 00:28:17,84 --> 00:28:23,61 became that Anwar Locky orchestrated the Fort Hood massacre but when U.S. 403 00:28:23,65 --> 00:28:27,73 Officials intelligence officials intercepted those e-mails and reviewed them they 404 00:28:27,74 --> 00:28:28,39 determined that 405 00:28:28,60 --> 00:28:32,41 a Lockie had nothing to do with it I now have the e-mails and I write about them in 406 00:28:32,42 --> 00:28:35,30 the book Nidal Hasan was basically kind of 407 00:28:35,31 --> 00:28:40,38 a creepy stalker he's like he's like that guy you don't want to see on your OK 408 00:28:40,39 --> 00:28:44,93 Cupid or something and he's asking a Lockie to help him find 409 00:28:44,94 --> 00:28:48,64 a wife and one point can you hook a brother up and asking him to find 410 00:28:48,65 --> 00:28:50,60 a wife and then he says I want to give you 411 00:28:50,61 --> 00:28:55,08 a prize for five thousand dollars for being on our Locky and I want to have an 412 00:28:55,09 --> 00:28:56,49 essay contest in your name and 413 00:28:56,50 --> 00:28:59,84 a lot he's saying things like give the money to the orphans No I don't want the 414 00:28:59,85 --> 00:29:04,73 award you're embarrassing me in any case the massacre happens then the story comes 415 00:29:04,74 --> 00:29:05,03 out that 416 00:29:05,04 --> 00:29:07,86 a lot has been an e-mail touch with Hasan and I like who is getting e-mails from 417 00:29:07,87 --> 00:29:12,07 people all over the world so he gets sort of painted with this brush and that could 418 00:29:12,08 --> 00:29:13,12 have been addressed except what 419 00:29:13,16 --> 00:29:16,44 a lot he did the day after that sealed his fate he wrote 420 00:29:16,45 --> 00:29:21,20 a blog post that said Nidal Hasan was a hero and he called on other U.S. 421 00:29:21,21 --> 00:29:24,40 Soldiers to commit similar acts and then 422 00:29:24,41 --> 00:29:29,16 a month later the Christmas Day bomb plot happens with him are for been 423 00:29:29,17 --> 00:29:32,77 a lock he gives an interview in which he says that he was one of his students now 424 00:29:32,78 --> 00:29:33,71 the U.S. Claims that 425 00:29:33,72 --> 00:29:40,12 a lot he directed that attack and actually authorized religiously authorized 426 00:29:40,62 --> 00:29:44,44 who are for the motel and to blow up that airplane I don't know what the facts are 427 00:29:44,46 --> 00:29:48,12 maybe he did maybe didn't know evidence has been presented that suggests that he 428 00:29:48,14 --> 00:29:51,26 did we don't know the U.S. 429 00:29:51,27 --> 00:29:54,98 Then for the first time tries to kill Anwar Locky in December of two thousand and 430 00:29:54,99 --> 00:29:56,62 nine and by my count they try to over 431 00:29:56,63 --> 00:30:00,85 a dozen times to kill him in one case which was extraordinary was almost out of 432 00:30:00,86 --> 00:30:04,68 a Hollywood movie. A Lockie was in Shabwah Province driving in 433 00:30:04,69 --> 00:30:08,37 a truck with another one of his colleagues and the US sent in 434 00:30:08,38 --> 00:30:11,72 a couple of drones and other aircraft and they they were tracking him and they 435 00:30:11,97 --> 00:30:12,42 launched 436 00:30:12,43 --> 00:30:16,64 a missile at his car and they miss it and it causes the vehicle to sort of blow 437 00:30:16,65 --> 00:30:19,13 forward in a blowout part of the back window and 438 00:30:19,14 --> 00:30:21,93 a lock in his cohorts think that they're being ambushed they don't think it's 439 00:30:21,94 --> 00:30:23,55 a drone they think it's an R.P.G. 440 00:30:23,89 --> 00:30:28,85 And then another missile hits and it misses the car but it hits nearby and it 441 00:30:28,86 --> 00:30:30,79 causes this huge dust up to happen and 442 00:30:30,80 --> 00:30:35,06 a law calls for backup in these two brothers the Herat brothers come from 443 00:30:35,35 --> 00:30:40,12 a nearby village and they race to the rescue and in the smoke the U.S. 444 00:30:40,13 --> 00:30:45,41 Satellites could could not make out what was happening below and they switch 445 00:30:45,45 --> 00:30:46,06 vehicles and 446 00:30:46,07 --> 00:30:50,38 a lot he gets into their Suzuki jeep and they get into his truck and they exit in 447 00:30:50,39 --> 00:30:52,70 opposite ways of the smoke and the U.S. 448 00:30:52,97 --> 00:30:56,76 War planners had only one missile left so they had to choose which vehicle to 449 00:30:56,77 --> 00:30:58,38 target and they go for the original one so 450 00:30:58,39 --> 00:31:03,02 a lot he watched as they blew up his vehicle with these two guys in it and he 451 00:31:03,03 --> 00:31:08,55 survived that strike that night and he said later in an essay eleven missiles 452 00:31:08,56 --> 00:31:12,67 missed their target tonight but maybe the next one will will hit its mark and while 453 00:31:12,68 --> 00:31:16,87 this manhunt is going on they're trying on all fronts to track him as they find him 454 00:31:16,88 --> 00:31:21,44 lose him miss him find him lose and miss him and one point they approach on where 455 00:31:21,45 --> 00:31:23,14 a lock ease the CIA approaches on where 456 00:31:23,15 --> 00:31:26,73 a lock ease youngest brother Amaro who works for an oil company and is like 457 00:31:26,74 --> 00:31:28,20 a hipster basically he's got 458 00:31:28,21 --> 00:31:32,16 a goatee and his wares and cool glasses and you're his jeans and you know he's not 459 00:31:32,17 --> 00:31:35,56 like his brother and barely knows his brother he's working for an oil company he's 460 00:31:35,57 --> 00:31:39,33 an Austrian business he gets a call in his hotel room one night from 461 00:31:39,34 --> 00:31:42,28 a guy who says Oh my wife and your wife are friends they used to work together I 462 00:31:42,29 --> 00:31:45,07 have a gift for come down and meet me in the lobby he comes on the lobby it's 463 00:31:45,08 --> 00:31:49,17 a guy named Chris quote unquote who basically says I don't know your wife and I 464 00:31:49,18 --> 00:31:50,36 don't have a gift for but there's 465 00:31:50,37 --> 00:31:53,13 a five million dollars bounty on your brother's head and we want you to give up his 466 00:31:53,14 --> 00:31:58,37 location so they're trying that then and this is one of my favorite stories this 467 00:31:58,38 --> 00:32:04,27 Danish guy named Morten Storm who also goes when you're a storm. He was 468 00:32:04,28 --> 00:32:06,13 a student with a Lockie in Yemen when 469 00:32:06,14 --> 00:32:09,01 a lock he was sort of first becoming radicalized and this guy's 470 00:32:09,02 --> 00:32:12,18 a total rank opportunist he had maintained this contact with 471 00:32:12,19 --> 00:32:14,37 a lot he realizes that the CIA is going after 472 00:32:14,38 --> 00:32:18,51 a Lockie and goes to the Danish intelligence service and says you know I'm still in 473 00:32:18,52 --> 00:32:22,56 touch with Anwar Locky and I can get you know messages maybe I can help you track 474 00:32:22,57 --> 00:32:25,69 him and they end up paying this guy two hundred fifty thousand dollars to work with 475 00:32:25,70 --> 00:32:30,32 him and what Morten Storm does is says to a lackey you know I can find you 476 00:32:30,33 --> 00:32:34,72 a wife to live with you underground and so he's communicating in encrypted emails 477 00:32:34,73 --> 00:32:37,51 with a lackey and he posts basically like a 478 00:32:37,56 --> 00:32:43,40 a wife wanted ad on Facebook and sort of women from around the world are 479 00:32:44,25 --> 00:32:49,54 replying to these messages about wanting to go live with the underground and 480 00:32:49,55 --> 00:32:53,52 eventually this this woman named Amina who is from Croatia and was 481 00:32:53,53 --> 00:32:57,08 a convert to Islam starts communicating with 482 00:32:57,09 --> 00:33:00,13 a Lockie and they're sending videos back and forth and they did 483 00:33:00,17 --> 00:33:04,64 a lot he determines that he wants to marry her and that she should come to Yemen So 484 00:33:05,22 --> 00:33:06,94 unbeknownst to both Ameena and Anwar 485 00:33:06,95 --> 00:33:11,61 a Lockie Morten Storm is working with his own intelligence service from the Danish 486 00:33:11,62 --> 00:33:12,91 intelligence service the P.T. 487 00:33:13,09 --> 00:33:17,83 And with the CIA And so the CIA handlers come and meet with this guy before Ameena 488 00:33:17,84 --> 00:33:21,90 is going to travel to Yemen to join Anwar Locky underground and they they give 489 00:33:21,94 --> 00:33:26,09 a Meena luggage she doesn't know she's working for the CIA that has these tracking 490 00:33:26,10 --> 00:33:29,87 devices in it and they're thinking OK this is good where this woman's going to go 491 00:33:29,91 --> 00:33:32,59 with her toiletry bags and all of this stuff that we've given her as 492 00:33:32,60 --> 00:33:36,49 a gift you know Gucci and she's going to arrive there is going to lead us to Anwar 493 00:33:36,50 --> 00:33:41,46 Locky so she arrives in Yemen with the CIA's luggage and Anwar 494 00:33:41,47 --> 00:33:44,78 a lock ease colleagues pick her up at the airport and they force her to ditch 495 00:33:44,79 --> 00:33:48,19 everything all of her clothes all of the bags and so the CIA is tracking devices 496 00:33:48,20 --> 00:33:52,58 are left in the airport and she goes on to marry Anwar Locky live with him 497 00:33:52,59 --> 00:33:53,80 underground and they have 498 00:33:53,81 --> 00:33:58,76 a child together so it's the CIA's dating service for. Help find him 499 00:33:58,77 --> 00:34:03,70 a wife so he's living happily with as CIA facilitated wife you know and I'm sure 500 00:34:03,71 --> 00:34:06,92 wasn't happy but he's on his underground who's on the run number of times they 501 00:34:06,93 --> 00:34:13,65 almost kill him. While he's underground His son of the rock mon is coming of age 502 00:34:13,66 --> 00:34:17,04 and is reading about his father and is seeing the news reports that the most 503 00:34:17,05 --> 00:34:21,29 powerful nation in the world is hunting his father and he sees him being compared 504 00:34:21,30 --> 00:34:25,68 to Osama bin Laden and bin Laden has has just been killed 505 00:34:26,46 --> 00:34:31,89 a lot he is just narrowly escaped the eleventh or twelfth drone strike attempt on 506 00:34:31,90 --> 00:34:37,25 him and the kid this sixteen year old of the Rockman decides he wants to find his 507 00:34:37,26 --> 00:34:42,81 father so he very early one morning before morning prayers gets up and he sneaks 508 00:34:42,82 --> 00:34:47,40 into his mom's bedroom and he takes the equivalent of forty dollars in Yemeni 509 00:34:47,41 --> 00:34:49,02 reales from her purse and he leaves her 510 00:34:49,03 --> 00:34:52,45 a small note that basically says I'm sorry that I stole this money I'll pay you 511 00:34:52,46 --> 00:34:56,69 back I miss my father and I I want to go and find him and he's packs 512 00:34:56,70 --> 00:35:02,61 a small bag any leaves the family at the family's kitchen window and he goes to the 513 00:35:02,62 --> 00:35:06,17 bus station in Bible Yemen in the Old City and Santa and he gets on 514 00:35:06,18 --> 00:35:10,30 a bus to go to where he thinks his father is where the scene of repeated drone 515 00:35:10,31 --> 00:35:14,96 strikes against his dad and he runs away from home he goes there and his plan I 516 00:35:14,97 --> 00:35:18,62 think was to try to figure out if somebody somewhere knows where his dad is so he 517 00:35:18,63 --> 00:35:22,80 goes to the place where he knows that they're trying to kill him or the family the 518 00:35:22,81 --> 00:35:26,04 grandparents or decide themselves they can't believe it they're trying to reach him 519 00:35:26,05 --> 00:35:29,57 he won't answer he won't come to the phone when they call the relatives there the 520 00:35:29,58 --> 00:35:35,04 relatives say he's OK And while he's there. His father gets killed in this drone 521 00:35:35,05 --> 00:35:39,08 strike on September thirtieth two thousand and nowhere near where the kid is 522 00:35:39,09 --> 00:35:42,60 nowhere near shot but he's killed in the north of Yemen and he was killed with 523 00:35:42,61 --> 00:35:44,85 another American named Samir Khan who's 524 00:35:44,86 --> 00:35:48,75 a Pakistani American widely believed to have been the editor in chief of Inspire 525 00:35:48,76 --> 00:35:52,34 magazine the magazine of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and so these two were 526 00:35:52,35 --> 00:35:56,55 killed and in Washington these two Americans were killed in Washington the reaction 527 00:35:56,56 --> 00:36:01,32 sort of fell into one of two camps either silence or enthusiastic support Hillary 528 00:36:01,33 --> 00:36:04,100 Clinton praised it John McCain praised it Dianne Feinstein praised it Lindsey 529 00:36:05,01 --> 00:36:09,58 Graham praised it one congressman said well if Samir Khan wasn't on the target list 530 00:36:09,59 --> 00:36:10,59 it was a bonus it was 531 00:36:10,60 --> 00:36:15,14 a twofer you know we killed these two American citizens neither of whom had been 532 00:36:15,34 --> 00:36:15,76 charged with 533 00:36:15,77 --> 00:36:20,63 a crime and so these guys are killed the son has run away from home and is in 534 00:36:20,76 --> 00:36:23,81 Shabab province and his grandmother calls him and says of the Rock Man it's 535 00:36:23,82 --> 00:36:28,00 finished your father is dead you have to come home and he said yeah I'll come home 536 00:36:28,01 --> 00:36:32,36 as soon as I can but the roads are blocked at the time it was the the what's called 537 00:36:32,37 --> 00:36:36,41 the Arab Spring these uprisings against these us back Tater ships were happening 538 00:36:36,42 --> 00:36:37,57 and in Yemen there was 539 00:36:37,58 --> 00:36:40,89 a rebellion against the regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh and he was in 540 00:36:40,90 --> 00:36:42,17 a part of the country where there was 541 00:36:42,18 --> 00:36:46,94 a tremendous amount of fighting and the roads were blockaded so he had to wait 542 00:36:47,18 --> 00:36:50,72 until it calmed down so that he could get back safely and so he was staying with 543 00:36:50,73 --> 00:36:54,82 his relatives and his father had just been killed and he was despondent and they 544 00:36:54,90 --> 00:36:59,13 his relatives were encouraging him to go out and so one night he goes out with his 545 00:36:59,74 --> 00:37:03,11 seventeen year old cousin Ahmed and some other young people from their tribe and 546 00:37:03,12 --> 00:37:07,18 they're sitting having dinner in a makeshift sort of outdoor restaurant when 547 00:37:07,19 --> 00:37:09,48 a drone appears above them and launches 548 00:37:09,49 --> 00:37:15,92 a missile and blows these kids to pieces and on October fifteenth and the day after 549 00:37:15,92 --> 00:37:21,84 . NASRA Locky his grandfather receives this call finding out that just two weeks 550 00:37:21,85 --> 00:37:25,49 after his son was killed that his eldest grandson had been killed in 551 00:37:25,50 --> 00:37:29,57 a drone strike and they said that they couldn't identify all of the bodies of the 552 00:37:29,88 --> 00:37:33,26 young people because the drone blew going to pieces but they found 553 00:37:33,27 --> 00:37:37,57 a part of the rock bands head and they knew it was him because of his huge head of 554 00:37:37,58 --> 00:37:43,00 hair because it was very unusual in that culture to have that kind of hairstyle and 555 00:37:43,12 --> 00:37:49,57 and they buried them all in one grave and after ob the rock Mona Locky sixteen year 556 00:37:49,58 --> 00:37:50,11 old U.S. 557 00:37:50,12 --> 00:37:55,94 Citizen born in Denver Colorado was killed there was no explanation as to why it 558 00:37:55,95 --> 00:38:00,84 seemed to me and I'm sure it seems to plenty of you and almost impossible 559 00:38:00,85 --> 00:38:05,28 coincidence you can understand in the lucky family understands why the United 560 00:38:05,29 --> 00:38:09,11 States wanted to kill Anwar they didn't support it they think that the U.S. 561 00:38:09,12 --> 00:38:13,83 Exaggerated his role within al Qaeda but they understood why the U.S. 562 00:38:13,84 --> 00:38:18,50 Wanted him dead but to them the killing of their sixteen year old grandson who 563 00:38:18,51 --> 00:38:24,89 hadn't seen his father in years who was into hip hop music and comic books and was 564 00:38:24,91 --> 00:38:30,14 a quiet lanky goofy wonderful older brother to his younger siblings and I saw 565 00:38:30,16 --> 00:38:35,77 endless home videos of this kid no way on earth that that kid was involved with 566 00:38:35,78 --> 00:38:41,92 anything vaguely resembling al Qaeda or terrorism or anything of the sort and to 567 00:38:41,93 --> 00:38:44,75 them it just seems so cold blooded and certainly the U.S. 568 00:38:44,76 --> 00:38:48,91 Is going to say how this happened why it happened please tell us it's just some 569 00:38:48,92 --> 00:38:53,80 mistake of history or tell us that you killed our grandson because you were fed bad 570 00:38:53,81 --> 00:38:59,90 information but don't say nothing and what was said and they watched in awe was 571 00:38:59,91 --> 00:39:00,33 that U.S. 572 00:39:00,34 --> 00:39:05,10 Military officials leaked stories to journalists that the locky kid was twenty one 573 00:39:05,48 --> 00:39:06,08 and that he was at 574 00:39:06,09 --> 00:39:09,74 a meet and al Qaeda meeting when he was killed and then they said well he was 575 00:39:09,75 --> 00:39:13,42 meeting with Ibrahim Albano one of the propagandist for al Qaeda in the Arabian 576 00:39:13,43 --> 00:39:18,50 Peninsula. But then it turns out that every mob on is alive you know we've killed 577 00:39:18,51 --> 00:39:21,40 the number two man in A.Q. A.P. 578 00:39:21,44 --> 00:39:26,23 Sayyid Al Shehri we've killed him twelve times this year he was killed two weeks 579 00:39:26,24 --> 00:39:27,18 ago and then 580 00:39:27,19 --> 00:39:31,94 a week ago he released an audio statement referencing current events I mean A Q A P 581 00:39:31,95 --> 00:39:36,08 is more reliable unfortunately in who die was dead who's alive and al Qaeda than 582 00:39:36,09 --> 00:39:39,30 the Washington Post or The New York Times so we know that the guy they said they 583 00:39:39,31 --> 00:39:45,64 were trying to kill There is alive so why was I going to lock you killed when Harry 584 00:39:45,65 --> 00:39:51,44 Reid the Senate majority leader was asked about the killings of Anwar Locky and 585 00:39:51,45 --> 00:39:56,17 Samir Khan and of the rock model lucky by Candy Crowley on C.N.N. 586 00:39:56,76 --> 00:40:01,53 The response of Harry Reid was if there were three Americans that deserved to die 587 00:40:01,53 --> 00:40:06,43 those three did and I went after Harry Reid and I was asking him what crime did the 588 00:40:06,44 --> 00:40:10,76 rock Munna Locky commit because you said those three what did that sixteen year old 589 00:40:10,77 --> 00:40:15,48 do what evidence do you have no response I went after him then on Twitter trying to 590 00:40:15,50 --> 00:40:18,60 shame his office into providing some response and then they blocked my Twitter 591 00:40:18,62 --> 00:40:24,58 account so I you know we've never gotten an explanation from him Robert Gibbs who 592 00:40:24,59 --> 00:40:28,31 was the former White House press secretary when he was asked by 593 00:40:28,32 --> 00:40:33,65 a young reporter named Sarah Adamson about and you can see this on You Tube about 594 00:40:33,66 --> 00:40:36,14 the killing about the Rockman a Lockie his response was he should have had 595 00:40:36,15 --> 00:40:38,69 a more responsible father there are 596 00:40:38,70 --> 00:40:45,19 a few things more shameful in world history than blaming the killing of children on 597 00:40:45,20 --> 00:40:50,82 who their parents were or something that their parents did or the last name of your 598 00:40:50,87 --> 00:40:53,23 family and that was a statement by 599 00:40:53,24 --> 00:40:57,99 a man not who was just some pundit on M S N B C At the time he was the surrogate 600 00:40:57,100 --> 00:41:02,15 for the Obama two thousand and twelve reelection campaign he was the senior spokes 601 00:41:02,16 --> 00:41:07,97 person for the president's re-election campaign. And so I have pressed on this with 602 00:41:07,98 --> 00:41:11,82 a handful of other journalists and no one has ever presented 603 00:41:11,83 --> 00:41:17,83 a public shred of evidence or explanation as to why that kid was killed after I was 604 00:41:17,84 --> 00:41:19,64 finished with my book I met 605 00:41:19,69 --> 00:41:23,98 a former senior official in the Obama administration who directly worked on the 606 00:41:24,39 --> 00:41:28,48 kill program and he only spoke to me on the agreement that I wouldn't publish his 607 00:41:28,49 --> 00:41:29,26 name and it was not 608 00:41:29,27 --> 00:41:32,71 a friendly interaction but it was I was sort of chasing him around 609 00:41:32,72 --> 00:41:37,63 a parking lot and eventually he turned around and said fine I'll talk to you and I 610 00:41:37,64 --> 00:41:40,69 said I asked him about the Rockman and he said that the A.C.L.U. 611 00:41:40,70 --> 00:41:43,43 Put you up to this and then he asked the A.C.L.U. 612 00:41:43,44 --> 00:41:46,36 Later did you put scale up to this and this and I don't I think he does OK you 613 00:41:46,37 --> 00:41:50,28 don't need to put him up to it so I asked him about the killing about the rock mine 614 00:41:50,29 --> 00:41:52,82 and he said to me Look I think it was 615 00:41:52,83 --> 00:41:54,40 a mistake and I said You mean you think it was 616 00:41:54,41 --> 00:41:58,00 a mistake you were there at the time signing off on the strikes and he said Well 617 00:41:58,01 --> 00:42:02,22 look when when Obama when the president heard that the kid had been killed he was 618 00:42:02,23 --> 00:42:06,34 very upset we had been told that this terrorist that we were targeting was alone 619 00:42:06,65 --> 00:42:10,47 and we didn't even tell us that that the that these young people were there and he 620 00:42:10,48 --> 00:42:13,52 said that John Brennan who at the time in this is this to me is 621 00:42:13,56 --> 00:42:18,11 a significant John Brennan at the time was the senior counterterrorism advisor Now 622 00:42:18,12 --> 00:42:22,68 of course the director of the CIA The Brennan thought that either the CIA or J. 623 00:42:22,69 --> 00:42:27,35 Sock had intentionally targeted the kid and did not believe that it could be 624 00:42:27,36 --> 00:42:29,56 a coincidence which is what I don't believe it could be 625 00:42:29,57 --> 00:42:33,06 a coincidence something that some pieces missing there so Brennan then orders 626 00:42:33,07 --> 00:42:38,22 a review. That review hasn't been published if it if it happened this official said 627 00:42:38,23 --> 00:42:42,49 he didn't know the result of that review when I tried to ask the White House and 628 00:42:42,50 --> 00:42:45,78 the National Security Council about it they said they wouldn't comment on whether 629 00:42:45,79 --> 00:42:50,25 review was or was not done and that they won't discuss the specifics of operations 630 00:42:50,69 --> 00:42:54,01 but then this official assured me that all is actually well it was just 631 00:42:54,05 --> 00:42:56,73 a mistake he was collateral damage we were trying to get 632 00:42:56,74 --> 00:42:58,21 a guy nearby and it's just 633 00:42:58,22 --> 00:43:02,80 a mistake though he's just asking me to accept that on faith and I don't that's not 634 00:43:02,81 --> 00:43:05,79 how journalism works and I said well if it's 635 00:43:05,80 --> 00:43:08,96 a mistake why don't you publicly come out and say we tried to kill this specific 636 00:43:08,97 --> 00:43:13,71 individual that kid was there we're deeply sorry for the killing of this innocent 637 00:43:13,72 --> 00:43:15,05 kid but X. Y. And Z. 638 00:43:15,06 --> 00:43:17,87 Were happening at the time we may not like it but at least they give some 639 00:43:18,10 --> 00:43:24,59 explanation or offer some compensation and he said look we had just killed three 640 00:43:24,60 --> 00:43:26,10 U.S. Citizens in 641 00:43:26,11 --> 00:43:30,67 a two week period two of whom weren't even targets Samir Khan an album rock mana 642 00:43:30,68 --> 00:43:37,43 lock it doesn't look good it was embarrassing it was embarrassing So the reason 643 00:43:37,44 --> 00:43:38,30 why there's never been 644 00:43:38,31 --> 00:43:42,06 a public explanation for why this sixteen year old kid was killed in 645 00:43:42,07 --> 00:43:47,01 a drone strike by the commander in chief of his own government is because it was 646 00:43:47,05 --> 00:43:52,21 you would have been too embarrassing to offer up an explanation. No I firmly 647 00:43:52,22 --> 00:43:55,92 believe that whether you're an American or or 648 00:43:55,96 --> 00:43:59,99 a non american there's no relevance at all to our discussions on 649 00:44:00,00 --> 00:44:01,57 a moral level the death of 650 00:44:01,58 --> 00:44:06,07 a Pakistani sixteen year old who doesn't even know the United States exists his 651 00:44:06,08 --> 00:44:10,36 life is worth just as much as the life of a sixteen year old who goes to 652 00:44:10,37 --> 00:44:16,14 a nice high school here in Seattle no difference between the two of them but there 653 00:44:16,15 --> 00:44:20,54 are issues about the targeting of American citizens that cut to the core of who we 654 00:44:20,55 --> 00:44:21,03 are as 655 00:44:21,04 --> 00:44:26,60 a society because if we don't even afford our own citizens due process or explain 656 00:44:26,61 --> 00:44:29,96 why someone is executed before they've even been charged with 657 00:44:29,97 --> 00:44:34,16 a crime that cuts to the heart of who we are as 658 00:44:34,17 --> 00:44:40,39 a society in the book I talk about another bombing in Yemen that happened in 659 00:44:40,40 --> 00:44:44,26 December of two thousand and nine it was the first time President Obama authorized 660 00:44:45,12 --> 00:44:50,78 the bombing of Yemen and again they say were they were hunting down this nefarious 661 00:44:50,79 --> 00:44:54,33 al Qaeda guy and they bombed what they claimed was 662 00:44:54,34 --> 00:45:00,06 a al Qaeda training camp Camp in the village of all modular Well it turns out that 663 00:45:00,07 --> 00:45:00,29 it was 664 00:45:00,30 --> 00:45:05,48 a Bedouin village and that among the forty six dead were fourteen women and twenty 665 00:45:05,49 --> 00:45:11,48 one children and I went to Abi on Province and interviewed the survivors of it and 666 00:45:11,49 --> 00:45:16,10 we videotaped the missile parts and it showed clearly that it's 667 00:45:16,11 --> 00:45:19,08 a cruise missile Yemen doesn't have them and that the U.S. 668 00:45:19,09 --> 00:45:22,44 Had used cluster bombs which are like flying landmines and are banned under 669 00:45:22,45 --> 00:45:27,47 international conventions and after this bombing happened the Yemeni government 670 00:45:27,48 --> 00:45:27,71 issued 671 00:45:27,72 --> 00:45:32,34 a press release saying that it conducted air raids and blew up this al Qaeda training 672 00:45:32,35 --> 00:45:37,59 camp and President Obama sent his congratulations to the Yemeni government and 673 00:45:37,60 --> 00:45:41,26 David Petraeus at the time the Cent Com commander had gone to Yemen and conspired 674 00:45:41,27 --> 00:45:44,06 with the Yemeni regime to have the U.S. 675 00:45:44,07 --> 00:45:47,93 Bomb Yemen and then Yemen take credit for it and then everyone will never know for 676 00:45:47,94 --> 00:45:53,71 the better. But because of the brave young journalist from Yemen going there 677 00:45:53,72 --> 00:45:57,69 initially and doing what we did also later which to go and film the missile parts 678 00:45:57,86 --> 00:45:59,24 the world knew that it was a U.S. 679 00:45:59,25 --> 00:46:03,60 Bombing and when this first journalists arrived there named Abdullah Hyder Shi'a 680 00:46:03,73 --> 00:46:07,01 when he filmed those missile parts and sent them to Amnesty International and the 681 00:46:07,02 --> 00:46:11,95 world knew that President Obama had initiated the bombing of yet another country of 682 00:46:11,96 --> 00:46:18,74 Yemen that journalist was abducted by Yemen's intelligence services beaten 683 00:46:18,78 --> 00:46:24,56 and threatened he was told You need to stop talking about this story on Al-Jazeera 684 00:46:24,57 --> 00:46:29,35 and elsewhere or we'll put you back in prison and he kept on talking about it and 685 00:46:29,36 --> 00:46:33,39 then eventually he was arrested and disappeared for thirty days into the basement 686 00:46:33,40 --> 00:46:36,07 of the political security organization in Yemen which is a U.S. 687 00:46:36,08 --> 00:46:41,31 Funded entity and then he was hauled into court and he was charged with being an al 688 00:46:41,32 --> 00:46:43,15 Qaeda facilitator in 689 00:46:43,17 --> 00:46:46,89 a court that was set up to prosecute journalists who committed crimes against the 690 00:46:46,90 --> 00:46:49,06 state in Yemen against the dictatorship in Yemen 691 00:46:49,44 --> 00:46:52,76 a court that was condemned by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in the 692 00:46:52,78 --> 00:46:56,67 Committee to Protect Journalists and every human and civil rights organization and 693 00:46:56,68 --> 00:47:00,42 media freedom organization in the world and his trial was a sham they put him in 694 00:47:00,43 --> 00:47:04,61 a cage in the courtroom and when he was brought out in the into this cage in the 695 00:47:04,62 --> 00:47:09,41 courtroom he said that I am being prosecuted because the Americans didn't want me 696 00:47:09,42 --> 00:47:12,94 to expose their cruise missile attack on this Bedouin village and show the world 697 00:47:12,95 --> 00:47:17,03 what they had done and he was then yanked away from the from the court and taken 698 00:47:17,04 --> 00:47:21,59 back into the prison and he was sentenced to five years in prison and there was so 699 00:47:21,60 --> 00:47:26,78 much outrage and outcry in Yemen where the tribal system is far more powerful than 700 00:47:26,79 --> 00:47:32,24 the government that the dictator of Yemen was forced to release him and he was 701 00:47:32,25 --> 00:47:33,08 getting ready to issue 702 00:47:33,09 --> 00:47:38,59 a pardon and it leaked in the Yemen's Yemen's official news service that Ali 703 00:47:38,60 --> 00:47:44,96 Abdullah Saleh was going to pardon the journalists of the. And that day he was 704 00:47:44,97 --> 00:47:46,87 going to sign the pardon he received 705 00:47:46,88 --> 00:47:51,99 a phone call from the White House not from one of President Obama's aides not from 706 00:47:52,00 --> 00:47:57,03 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton but from President Obama himself and President 707 00:47:57,04 --> 00:48:02,70 Obama told him that he was deeply concerned about the reports that they were going 708 00:48:02,71 --> 00:48:06,96 to pardon of the level higher Shi'a and the dictator of Yemen ripped up the pardon 709 00:48:07,29 --> 00:48:13,01 and kept that journalist in prison he remains in that prison to this day on orders 710 00:48:13,37 --> 00:48:18,62 from President Obama and his crime was exposing a U.S. 711 00:48:18,63 --> 00:48:22,47 Cruise missile attack on Yemen that the U.S. 712 00:48:22,48 --> 00:48:27,81 Government tried to cover up and blame on the Yemeni government and lest you think 713 00:48:27,82 --> 00:48:28,44 I'm engaged in 714 00:48:28,45 --> 00:48:33,09 a conspiracy theory about this go and visit White House dot gov tonight and look 715 00:48:33,09 --> 00:48:36,13 for the press release from February of two thousand and eleven that is 716 00:48:36,14 --> 00:48:36,71 a readout of 717 00:48:36,73 --> 00:48:42,40 a phone call between Obama and Ali Abdullah Saleh and they put it right there when 718 00:48:42,41 --> 00:48:46,36 I called the State Department and asked them after he had been in prison for almost 719 00:48:46,37 --> 00:48:48,53 two years if it was still the U.S. 720 00:48:48,54 --> 00:48:51,24 Government position that he remains in prison they told me he remains 721 00:48:51,25 --> 00:48:57,24 a dangerous terrorist and he should be kept in prison the stakes are very high 722 00:48:57,74 --> 00:49:00,95 around the world for people who dared to expose 723 00:49:00,96 --> 00:49:04,20 a missile attack that was not supposed to have taken place or is supposed to be the 724 00:49:04,41 --> 00:49:04,99 action of 725 00:49:05,00 --> 00:49:09,54 a dictatorship the stakes are very high for people that worked at the National 726 00:49:09,55 --> 00:49:11,08 Security Agency in the U.S. 727 00:49:11,09 --> 00:49:15,51 And blow the whistle on warrantless wiretapping this administration has cracked 728 00:49:15,52 --> 00:49:16,50 down on whistleblowers in 729 00:49:16,51 --> 00:49:21,83 a more aggressive way than all presidents combined in modern times. There's 730 00:49:21,84 --> 00:49:24,45 a CIA officer named John Kiriakou who's doing 731 00:49:24,46 --> 00:49:29,29 a prison term right now in part for revealing classified information to journalists 732 00:49:29,51 --> 00:49:31,29 about the U.S. 733 00:49:31,30 --> 00:49:37,21 Torture program but Jose Rodriguez who was one of the creators of the black site 734 00:49:37,22 --> 00:49:42,56 system and an enthusiastic promoter of torture who said that we had to put our big 735 00:49:42,57 --> 00:49:47,86 boy pants after nine eleven he is lionized in documentaries and films and permitted 736 00:49:47,87 --> 00:49:49,84 to walk around the society as 737 00:49:49,85 --> 00:49:54,64 a free man making money off of writing books about how great torture is it says 738 00:49:54,65 --> 00:50:01,17 a lot about what's happening in our society I also traveled to Somalia where I 739 00:50:01,18 --> 00:50:05,18 walked around with CIA warlords and talked to people who have been put in 740 00:50:05,19 --> 00:50:10,11 a prison in the basement of Somalia's National Security Service Obama ended black 741 00:50:10,12 --> 00:50:15,73 sites he supposedly ended torture but what we're doing now is we're letting Somali 742 00:50:15,82 --> 00:50:17,87 thugs torture prisoners that are in 743 00:50:17,91 --> 00:50:23,17 a prison on orders from the United States who have been rendered from other 744 00:50:23,18 --> 00:50:27,01 countries brought to the school log put in that prison but it's all the Somalis 745 00:50:27,02 --> 00:50:31,54 doing it our guys are just standing in the room what's the difference between 746 00:50:31,55 --> 00:50:31,96 operating 747 00:50:31,97 --> 00:50:36,29 a black site in Poland and having the CIA doing the torture and operating 748 00:50:36,33 --> 00:50:41,58 a proxy detention center in Somalia that's technically run by Somalis but you're 749 00:50:41,59 --> 00:50:45,58 they're directing their every move it's just torture by puppet you're not actually 750 00:50:45,59 --> 00:50:51,31 doing it yourself it's like the torture ventriloquism or something around the world 751 00:50:51,35 --> 00:50:56,98 we are making more enemies than we are killing terrorists when you engage in 752 00:50:56,99 --> 00:50:59,97 a policy as we do called signature strikes which is 753 00:50:59,98 --> 00:51:05,66 a grotesque form of pre-crime when you categorize people in Yemen or Pakistan as 754 00:51:05,67 --> 00:51:09,60 terrorists but you don't know their identities you care Kerrick categorize them as 755 00:51:09,61 --> 00:51:13,50 terrorist because they're military age males. And they're in 756 00:51:13,51 --> 00:51:17,25 a certain region and someone in their group has been on the phone with someone else 757 00:51:17,26 --> 00:51:17,92 who we believe to be 758 00:51:17,93 --> 00:51:21,63 a terrorist and you preemptively say well those guys must be up to no good or they 759 00:51:21,64 --> 00:51:25,36 will be someday and so they're legitimate targets that's what the policy is right 760 00:51:25,37 --> 00:51:31,36 now in certain areas of Pakistan and certain areas of Yemen my friend for I almost 761 00:51:31,37 --> 00:51:34,22 Leamy who is a young Yemeni guy who testified in front of the U.S. 762 00:51:34,23 --> 00:51:39,91 Senate said that the United States achieved in one drone strike what al Qaeda has 763 00:51:39,92 --> 00:51:40,65 been trying to do for 764 00:51:40,66 --> 00:51:45,87 a decade they turned his village against America and put them on the side of al 765 00:51:45,88 --> 00:51:50,64 Qaeda I can't tell you how many times I heard people whose communities had been 766 00:51:50,65 --> 00:51:55,19 targeted in raids or strikes say when that happened I want to put on 767 00:51:55,20 --> 00:51:59,75 a suicide vest and blow myself up among the Americans or I've hated al Qaeda my 768 00:51:59,76 --> 00:52:03,55 whole life but the enemy of my enemy has become my friend because of what you did 769 00:52:03,80 --> 00:52:06,63 to my family we are going to pay 770 00:52:06,64 --> 00:52:11,13 a price for this down the line it may come in the form of a bombing of 771 00:52:11,14 --> 00:52:15,64 a subway or the downing of an airliner or the kidnapping of American tourists 772 00:52:15,65 --> 00:52:19,76 abroad but we will pay for it in some form or another if we don't wake up and 773 00:52:19,77 --> 00:52:26,56 understand the impact of our actions I want to wrap up but I want to say one final 774 00:52:26,57 --> 00:52:32,59 thing on the subject if you remember when Governor George Ryan who is the governor 775 00:52:32,60 --> 00:52:34,53 of the state of Illinois a Republican and was 776 00:52:34,54 --> 00:52:39,28 a co-chair of Bush's two thousand campaign he has 777 00:52:39,29 --> 00:52:41,44 a complicated story and he ended up in prison and that's for 778 00:52:41,45 --> 00:52:46,01 a different discussion but George Ryan called for 779 00:52:46,02 --> 00:52:50,39 a moratorium on the death penalty in the state of Illinois Why did he do it is it 780 00:52:50,40 --> 00:52:54,52 because he's a. Card carrying member of Amnesty International because he has 781 00:52:54,53 --> 00:53:00,29 a moral opposition to the death penalty no he did it because great young students 782 00:53:00,30 --> 00:53:05,38 from the Innocence Project and tireless advocates for the rights of prisoners and 783 00:53:05,63 --> 00:53:10,62 and those on death row started investigating cases. Through D.N.A. 784 00:53:10,63 --> 00:53:11,87 Evidence exonerated 785 00:53:11,88 --> 00:53:16,84 a number of prisoners it became clear that innocent people were being put to death 786 00:53:17,29 --> 00:53:21,70 on death row in the pursuit of the guilty they were also killing the innocent and 787 00:53:21,71 --> 00:53:26,13 it was happening in such large numbers and so many cases of people that had already 788 00:53:26,14 --> 00:53:30,31 been killed or were about to be killed came to light that George Ryan did the 789 00:53:30,32 --> 00:53:33,28 responsible thing he said we have to put 790 00:53:33,29 --> 00:53:39,09 a moratorium on the death penalty until we can examine how all of this happen I'm 791 00:53:39,10 --> 00:53:43,07 against drone strikes period I don't think they're effective on 792 00:53:43,08 --> 00:53:46,55 a tactical level and I don't think that they're worth it on 793 00:53:46,56 --> 00:53:49,60 a moral level at all but I also think that there is 794 00:53:49,61 --> 00:53:52,49 a reason for people even if you think this is 795 00:53:52,50 --> 00:53:56,02 a smarter cleaner way of waging war which I assure you it's not but even if you 796 00:53:56,03 --> 00:54:00,86 believe that. It's gotten so out of control at this point with the number of 797 00:54:00,87 --> 00:54:03,42 innocent people that have been killed that there should be 798 00:54:03,43 --> 00:54:08,99 a moratorium on drone strikes so that we know who has been killed let's let's bring 799 00:54:09,00 --> 00:54:12,65 it to the front let's know the names of the people in Pakistan that we've killed 800 00:54:12,81 --> 00:54:15,97 the names of the people in Yemen that we've killed and even if even though they're 801 00:54:15,98 --> 00:54:20,66 dead now let's go back and see what evidence was there to suggest that those 802 00:54:20,84 --> 00:54:25,02 fourteen women and twenty one children who were killed shredded into meat in 803 00:54:25,03 --> 00:54:29,81 a module and Yemen on December seventeenth two thousand and nine what crime did the 804 00:54:29,82 --> 00:54:33,97 six year old girl commit against United States so that her arm was a half 805 00:54:33,98 --> 00:54:37,75 a mile away from her head when they found her body what crime did she commit 806 00:54:38,36 --> 00:54:41,12 because this cuts to the heart of who we are as 807 00:54:41,13 --> 00:54:45,60 a society it's being done in all of our names and whether you support the drone 808 00:54:45,61 --> 00:54:46,36 strikes as 809 00:54:46,37 --> 00:54:50,43 a smarter way of war or you're against them because you think they're immoral you 810 00:54:50,44 --> 00:54:56,16 have to be against the targeting of people whose identity we don't know evidence 811 00:54:56,17 --> 00:55:02,20 against whom we don't possess the names of which we don't know you have to say that 812 00:55:02,21 --> 00:55:04,77 is not right on a moral level and I would I'm not 813 00:55:04,78 --> 00:55:09,36 a lawyer but I would venture to guess that it's probably illegal too it's long past 814 00:55:09,37 --> 00:55:14,15 due that we had that discussion in this country look at how we were gripped by fear 815 00:55:14,80 --> 00:55:18,13 when the Boston bombing happened they shut the whole city down in 816 00:55:18,14 --> 00:55:24,48 a curfew paralyzed nation and in many ways frightened we respond to 817 00:55:24,49 --> 00:55:30,48 fear the calls for the siren I have kid to be treated as an enemy combatant. And 818 00:55:30,49 --> 00:55:33,39 now they've rounded up these other kids and I don't know who was involved with what 819 00:55:33,40 --> 00:55:36,52 and I want people brought to justice who do those things but there should be 820 00:55:36,53 --> 00:55:41,07 a trial and then we shouldn't have the posse or the lynch mob going to round people 821 00:55:41,08 --> 00:55:46,15 up and that the media circus was despicable disgraceful and full of bigotry when 822 00:55:46,16 --> 00:55:49,35 you stick the picture of a track star who happens to be 823 00:55:49,36 --> 00:55:53,23 a person of color on the front page of The New York Post and imply that the F.B.I. 824 00:55:53,24 --> 00:55:57,45 Is looking for Him You are tarring that kid's reputation and attempting to ruin his 825 00:55:57,46 --> 00:56:00,69 life it was racist to the core what the New York Post did 826 00:56:01,17 --> 00:56:08,10 thank the media coverage has been atrocious but there's one part of it that 827 00:56:08,11 --> 00:56:15,00 was and remains outstanding and that's the coverage of who died in those in 828 00:56:15,01 --> 00:56:18,94 that bombing and who was injured in the stories of heroes like Carlos Arredondo who 829 00:56:19,23 --> 00:56:20,98 rescued the man who is now 830 00:56:20,99 --> 00:56:25,29 a double amputee and that iconic picture of Carlos Arredondo who is 831 00:56:25,30 --> 00:56:30,70 a famed activist who is standing up for veterans and is also an antiwar activist 832 00:56:30,71 --> 00:56:34,86 and has suffered tremendously in his personal life but he was there that day as 833 00:56:34,87 --> 00:56:35,11 part of 834 00:56:35,12 --> 00:56:40,71 a coalition of people that were raising money for wounded veterans and he ran 835 00:56:40,72 --> 00:56:44,52 toward the side of the explosion and he helped to rescue this guy and we know his 836 00:56:44,53 --> 00:56:50,01 story and we know the story of that adorable eight year old kid and I think 837 00:56:50,02 --> 00:56:53,53 a lot of you have probably seen that picture of him holding up the pieces and that 838 00:56:53,54 --> 00:56:54,18 he had painted 839 00:56:54,19 --> 00:56:59,30 a short time before he was so viciously blown up that day in Boston and we know 840 00:56:59,31 --> 00:57:04,26 about the graduate student from China President Obama said her name I was with 841 00:57:04,27 --> 00:57:07,91 a Chinese friend recently and she told me that after that happened and President 842 00:57:07,92 --> 00:57:11,74 Obama said the name of that Chinese woman who was killed that day was 843 00:57:11,75 --> 00:57:13,77 a graduate student here that someone wrote 844 00:57:13,78 --> 00:57:20,11 a blog post in China that said where you die matters. And the point of it was that 845 00:57:20,12 --> 00:57:23,35 if she had died in a factory explosion in China making 846 00:57:23,36 --> 00:57:27,70 a product for the United States her name would have never ever been mentioned by 847 00:57:27,71 --> 00:57:33,36 the most powerful man in the world but where you die matters and we know the 848 00:57:33,37 --> 00:57:37,84 stories of all of those people because journalists did their job and humanize the 849 00:57:37,85 --> 00:57:38,47 victims of 850 00:57:38,48 --> 00:57:43,63 a terrible terrible crime and because we know the stories of those people we have 851 00:57:43,64 --> 00:57:46,90 a human connection to it even if we didn't meet them in the same was true of 852 00:57:46,91 --> 00:57:50,84 Newtown and Sandy Hook and the Virginia Tech shooting in the stories of the heroes 853 00:57:50,85 --> 00:57:56,27 and the victims of the innocence taken away can you imagine if that is how 854 00:57:56,48 --> 00:58:03,11 reporters covered the victims of drone strikes or of night raids where instead of 855 00:58:03,12 --> 00:58:08,16 focusing on the Real Housewives of New York and their Pino grito we focused on the 856 00:58:08,17 --> 00:58:10,89 real widows of Baghdad and what they've lost from 857 00:58:10,90 --> 00:58:15,30 a war that never should've been started in the first place or the or the real 858 00:58:15,31 --> 00:58:21,01 widowers of Mogadishu thank. 859 00:58:22,68 --> 00:58:27,89 You So in closing I want to say that that I think one of the most simple truths in 860 00:58:27,91 --> 00:58:34,52 the world is that it's very difficult to empathize with the fate of others unless 861 00:58:34,53 --> 00:58:38,51 you are able to see their humanity and one of the core responsibilities of 862 00:58:38,52 --> 00:58:44,64 journalists is to see the humanity in people irrespective of their nationality 863 00:58:45,46 --> 00:58:51,21 or what they're accused of or who they may or may not become one day because only 864 00:58:51,23 --> 00:58:56,48 when we empathize with the other only when we try to put ourselves in their shoe do 865 00:58:56,49 --> 00:58:58,27 we learn real lessons about ourselves as 866 00:58:58,28 --> 00:59:03,66 a society and what we actually believe our instinct is for our hearts to bleed for 867 00:59:03,67 --> 00:59:09,55 the victims of incidents like the Boston bombing or the or Sandy Hook or Newtown. 868 00:59:10,53 --> 00:59:14,47 Why shouldn't it be true that our instinct is also to have our hearts bleed for the 869 00:59:14,48 --> 00:59:20,84 victims of these bombings around the world because I guarantee you if that's how 870 00:59:20,85 --> 00:59:22,76 their stories were told we'd have 871 00:59:22,77 --> 00:59:27,37 a very very different discussion in this country and it's long past time that that 872 00:59:27,38 --> 00:59:34,11 discussion began thank you very much thank you I was 873 00:59:34,12 --> 00:59:35,52 wondering just 874 00:59:35,93 --> 00:59:42,61 a question two short questions one is an update on the hedges versus Obama. About 875 00:59:42,62 --> 00:59:43,50 the F.D.A. 876 00:59:43,54 --> 00:59:50,06 Like if there's an update and to. Considering just the whole issue of 877 00:59:50,07 --> 00:59:56,64 war and enabling. Do you think that President Obama should be tried as 878 00:59:56,65 --> 01:00:03,52 a war criminal the way Bush should have been tried is of war criminal thank you 879 01:00:04,29 --> 01:00:06,20 on the first issue you're asking about it's 880 01:00:06,21 --> 01:00:09,33 a very complicated case and I think I would bog down the evening with it but there 881 01:00:09,34 --> 01:00:09,45 was 882 01:00:09,46 --> 01:00:13,08 a case that was brought by Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky and others challenging the 883 01:00:13,42 --> 01:00:17,61 National Defense Authorization Act and some of the tenets in it which seem to allow 884 01:00:17,62 --> 01:00:18,28 for U.S. 885 01:00:18,29 --> 01:00:21,90 Citizens to be detained indefinitely without charge if they have any kind of 886 01:00:21,91 --> 01:00:26,16 communication with people that are believed to be terrorists or militants so they 887 01:00:26,25 --> 01:00:29,36 they'd challenge that and if people want to you know search for that on the 888 01:00:29,37 --> 01:00:32,55 Internet you can find about the case is still very much being fought on the issue 889 01:00:32,56 --> 01:00:38,56 of the war crimes thing you know I think that by nature of the job everyone who 890 01:00:38,57 --> 01:00:43,58 becomes president the United States inevitably ends up in gauging in what clearly 891 01:00:43,59 --> 01:00:47,70 would be considered war crimes if we had an actual international criminal court I 892 01:00:47,71 --> 01:00:53,55 mean the cluster bombing of Yemen was it was a war crime if there was 893 01:00:53,56 --> 01:00:57,03 a civilian population that was hit with flying landmines on orders from the 894 01:00:57,07 --> 01:01:02,17 president of United States so I mean just by you know I don't use the term war 895 01:01:02,18 --> 01:01:07,48 criminal rhetorical. You know as to hurl insults I think that it's it goes with the 896 01:01:07,49 --> 01:01:09,44 job and it's sort of 897 01:01:09,45 --> 01:01:13,81 a twisted. Aspect of our society where we don't recognize the legitimacy of any 898 01:01:13,82 --> 01:01:18,17 international institutions to apply justice to our actions it's reserved for people 899 01:01:18,18 --> 01:01:22,99 like Slobodan Milosevic and the butchers of Rwanda and invents why I think we 900 01:01:23,00 --> 01:01:25,66 should be supporting an international criminal court that would have full 901 01:01:25,67 --> 01:01:28,61 jurisdiction to prosecute people including U.S. 902 01:01:28,62 --> 01:01:32,87 Officials for their role in bombing such as the cluster bombing of this village in 903 01:01:32,92 --> 01:01:38,27 Yemen Hi Jeremy I'm really grateful to have the opportunity to ask you this 904 01:01:38,28 --> 01:01:39,12 question I feel like this is 905 01:01:39,13 --> 01:01:43,80 a weird dynamic here I mean it's I have going to close sorry about that and I've 906 01:01:43,81 --> 01:01:48,33 asked it of many people on the conversation never gets to the point saying there is 907 01:01:48,34 --> 01:01:54,12 a moratorium on drones and the president and his team have real hard evidence that 908 01:01:54,13 --> 01:01:54,34 there's 909 01:01:54,35 --> 01:02:01,45 a plot is an operation you know underfoot in you know going on and he knows 910 01:02:01,46 --> 01:02:06,97 that an attack is going to happen but we decided not to use drones what would you 911 01:02:06,98 --> 01:02:13,87 have him do to protect whoever is targeted presumably Americans I've yet 912 01:02:13,88 --> 01:02:14,28 to see 913 01:02:14,29 --> 01:02:18,68 a single drone strike where they've made that argument that they that there was an 914 01:02:18,69 --> 01:02:22,83 imminent plot that the people they killed were I mean they just haven't made that 915 01:02:22,84 --> 01:02:25,58 argument if it's the same thing the Republicans would say about 916 01:02:25,72 --> 01:02:28,94 a ticking time plots with torture it's like oh you know it's the twenty Jack Bauer 917 01:02:28,95 --> 01:02:32,87 scenario I mean that there are ways to respond to those things we have law 918 01:02:32,88 --> 01:02:36,50 enforcement agencies that go in and do raids and arrest people I believe the U.S. 919 01:02:36,51 --> 01:02:36,61 Has 920 01:02:36,62 --> 01:02:44,07 a right to defend itself. In this scenario. You just finish your finish you 921 01:02:44,08 --> 01:02:48,57 know he's got he's got reliable intelligence at any rate ever going to carry out 922 01:02:48,58 --> 01:02:53,26 this plot they're there but what part of the carrying out in Yemen against us I 923 01:02:53,27 --> 01:02:58,11 don't know some plot that but this is I mean I mean what you're saying can you I 924 01:02:58,12 --> 01:03:01,93 mean I've spent my life reporting on the stuff I've yet to see the hypothetical 925 01:03:01,94 --> 01:03:06,71 that you're presenting and I mean we have enough evidence that innocent people have 926 01:03:06,72 --> 01:03:11,59 been killed left and right in these operations that to grasp but hypothetical it's 927 01:03:11,60 --> 01:03:15,95 just I don't know anyone from the CIA or the military that's ever said to me we've 928 01:03:15,96 --> 01:03:19,87 drawn bomb this guy before he blew up the embassy I mean I just I'm not I'm not 929 01:03:19,88 --> 01:03:20,21 aware of 930 01:03:20,22 --> 01:03:23,39 a plot like that and I think we should be responding to these things through the 931 01:03:23,40 --> 01:03:27,24 lens of law enforcement indicting them demanding their extradition and if they 932 01:03:27,25 --> 01:03:33,80 don't if it doesn't happen you can justify going in and doing something. Jeremy 933 01:03:34,04 --> 01:03:38,57 thank you for shedding light on the darkness appreciate you I lived in South 934 01:03:38,58 --> 01:03:42,07 America for two years I saw some of the effects of Operation Condor when I was 935 01:03:42,08 --> 01:03:47,99 there the torture camps backed by the CIA backed by Henry Kissinger I recently saw 936 01:03:47,100 --> 01:03:49,30 on Democracy Now 937 01:03:49,61 --> 01:03:54,82 a. Piece that was talking about the drone plane assassinations being 938 01:03:54,83 --> 01:04:00,41 a continuation and in essence of Operation Condor What do you think about. Yeah I 939 01:04:00,42 --> 01:04:03,17 mean part of the reason why I called the book Dirty Wars was 940 01:04:03,18 --> 01:04:07,22 a kind of macabre tip of the hat to a different era and in U.S. 941 01:04:07,23 --> 01:04:12,86 Foreign policy where you had these dirty wars in Central Latin America in Nicaragua 942 01:04:12,87 --> 01:04:18,20 Honduras El Salvador and of course back in the Chilean government and you know what 943 01:04:18,21 --> 01:04:22,36 you're referring to also is that assassination program that was run by Pinochet's 944 01:04:22,37 --> 01:04:27,59 people as well and I think that you know we're we are engaged in operations that 945 01:04:28,23 --> 01:04:32,61 resemble Operation Condor and quite frankly the Phoenix program in Vietnam where 946 01:04:32,62 --> 01:04:34,31 you're using proxy forces as 947 01:04:34,32 --> 01:04:38,69 a kind of hit squad to go out that certainly is what's happening in Somalia and to 948 01:04:38,70 --> 01:04:42,65 an extent and in Yemen and occasionally in other countries around the world but I 949 01:04:42,66 --> 01:04:42,96 think it's 950 01:04:42,97 --> 01:04:49,72 a student observation. Thank you for. An 951 01:04:49,92 --> 01:04:56,78 Island thank you for your work. I guess my question 952 01:04:56,79 --> 01:05:01,93 is What do you think about the collusion between humanitarian work and. 953 01:05:04,07 --> 01:05:09,83 Especially with us. Being involved in psyops in Afghanistan and this notion of 954 01:05:09,88 --> 01:05:16,11 winning hearts and minds which is. If you like. From my own experience it's just 955 01:05:16,45 --> 01:05:22,52 so much more evident these days. I mean you know want one 956 01:05:23,37 --> 01:05:27,19 thing that I think is really disturbing stewpot of the story of the bin Laden raid 957 01:05:27,23 --> 01:05:30,39 was the use of this doctor to run 958 01:05:30,40 --> 01:05:35,70 a fake vaccination program for the CIA you know the Pakistan is one of the few 959 01:05:35,71 --> 01:05:40,04 countries in the world that actually still has has a threat of polio and the U.S. 960 01:05:40,05 --> 01:05:41,59 Had been there U.S. 961 01:05:41,60 --> 01:05:45,84 N.G.O.s that had been working for years on trying to gain enough trust to go into 962 01:05:45,88 --> 01:05:51,71 really poor areas of Pakistan that were impacted by polio and and they were making 963 01:05:51,72 --> 01:05:53,01 headway and then when the U.S. 964 01:05:53,02 --> 01:05:56,64 Uses this doctor in the story comes out and the doctors now in life are in prison 965 01:05:56,65 --> 01:06:01,26 for life in Pakistan but that all of that ended it rolled rolled it back so far and 966 01:06:01,27 --> 01:06:05,43 it and it's you know the people are going to pay the price for our local Pakistanis 967 01:06:05,75 --> 01:06:10,93 you know it it's deeply disturbing to me as a journalist that part of the U.S. 968 01:06:10,94 --> 01:06:16,94 Covert wars includes operatives posing as journalists or as aid workers because it 969 01:06:16,95 --> 01:06:21,68 puts wonderful people at terrible peril and risk in countries where they're 970 01:06:21,69 --> 01:06:28,44 actually trying to do good and in Afghanistan I mean everywhere I went as was the 971 01:06:28,45 --> 01:06:30,59 case in pretty much everywhere I go they think I'm 972 01:06:30,60 --> 01:06:34,75 a spy and it's not just that you know you're the what you know you're the sort of 973 01:06:34,76 --> 01:06:35,73 white guy with a beard so you're 974 01:06:35,74 --> 01:06:38,30 a spy of the unfortunate reality of also kind of looking like 975 01:06:38,31 --> 01:06:40,56 a CIA guy at times but but they think I'm 976 01:06:40,57 --> 01:06:43,13 a spy and I want to you when you ask for people who try to talk to them they say 977 01:06:43,14 --> 01:06:44,03 well every journalist is 978 01:06:44,04 --> 01:06:47,78 a spy and you know people have the Internet. They Google they read the same stories 979 01:06:47,79 --> 01:06:50,43 we do and it's been telegraphed So I mean I think it's 980 01:06:50,44 --> 01:06:55,91 a really destructive thing for our intelligence agencies or military people to pose 981 01:06:55,92 --> 01:07:02,82 as civilians who are are being intrusted. With sort of the the ability to 982 01:07:02,83 --> 01:07:07,16 go into hard to reach areas are dangerous areas and have some protections under 983 01:07:07,17 --> 01:07:10,85 international laws you know we're going to run the risk of our people losing that 984 01:07:10,86 --> 01:07:16,32 if we if we militarize our N.G.O.s and journalists of it's very important issue you 985 01:07:16,33 --> 01:07:23,20 raise Hi Jeremy thanks I just got back from Palestine five days 986 01:07:23,21 --> 01:07:26,87 ago and taken those five days just to get my heart rate down in the acid in my 987 01:07:26,88 --> 01:07:31,54 stomach Don and thanks for putting it all back there tonight with everything you've 988 01:07:31,55 --> 01:07:36,59 told us My question revolves around social media as and you mentioned Amnesty 989 01:07:36,60 --> 01:07:41,60 International tonight and as an example people I've met I was trying to find the 990 01:07:41,61 --> 01:07:47,93 human side of Palestine which I did find and just an example there. 991 01:07:49,77 --> 01:07:54,05 The There was an arrest made 992 01:07:54,05 --> 01:07:57,91 a woman two little babies in her home they arrested the woman because they can't 993 01:07:57,91 --> 01:08:00,59 get to the Father in Gaza and 994 01:08:00,79 --> 01:08:04,44 a lot of folks there are some American some locals do letter writing campaigns to 995 01:08:04,44 --> 01:08:10,37 Amnesty International and what's happening now is that the lawyers are putting 996 01:08:10,39 --> 01:08:13,94 a finger on them and saying if you keep writing these letters you know your wife's 997 01:08:13,96 --> 01:08:16,83 going to stay in jail so my question is when you have people here in 998 01:08:16,84 --> 01:08:20,87 a city like this I come back I want to use social media I want to get people 999 01:08:20,87 --> 01:08:27,44 involved learn about facts. What kind of fear should we have about social media and 1000 01:08:27,44 --> 01:08:30,100 how does that relate to activism and people want to get involved and get others 1001 01:08:31,29 --> 01:08:37,46 educated and involved. I mean just briefly the. People's data is being seized all 1002 01:08:37,47 --> 01:08:41,40 the time you know Internet service providers and telecommunications companies get 1003 01:08:41,41 --> 01:08:44,70 served with national security letters and they're not allowed to tell anyone that 1004 01:08:44,71 --> 01:08:48,20 they've been served with and they're handing over all of your data if you're under 1005 01:08:48,21 --> 01:08:54,63 investigation or being investigated and they can go to jail if they actually say 1006 01:08:54,64 --> 01:08:59,46 anything about it I mean I think all of us have to be extremely careful with how we 1007 01:08:59,47 --> 01:09:02,99 communicate through digital means because all of it in one way or another is 1008 01:09:02,100 --> 01:09:04,40 getting sucked into the N.S.A. 1009 01:09:04,41 --> 01:09:08,31 Computers and ultimately can come back and search us and there's no actual way of 1010 01:09:08,32 --> 01:09:12,44 deleting e-mails from many providers there are some you know like rise up and 1011 01:09:12,45 --> 01:09:16,82 others who don't store the emails on their servers but you know if for some 1012 01:09:16,83 --> 01:09:19,81 activists who are doing organizing that's hitting at the heart of power there's 1013 01:09:19,82 --> 01:09:22,79 a lot to be concerned about having said that I think social media is 1014 01:09:22,80 --> 01:09:26,67 a fantastic tool for organizing and getting the word out and people just have to 1015 01:09:26,68 --> 01:09:31,32 have to be smart you know about how they gauge and in social media and how we 1016 01:09:31,33 --> 01:09:33,45 communicate with one another and you know I'm 1017 01:09:33,46 --> 01:09:35,03 a big privacy activist I think we have 1018 01:09:35,04 --> 01:09:37,48 a right to privacy in that the government does not have 1019 01:09:37,49 --> 01:09:41,57 a right to get into our e-mails were involved criminal activity that's that's one 1020 01:09:41,58 --> 01:09:44,56 thing but most people that are being targeted in that way I think are just having 1021 01:09:44,57 --> 01:09:47,68 their rights violated on suspicion that they may or may not be involved in 1022 01:09:47,69 --> 01:09:53,62 something that's just wrong. Could you just give us 1023 01:09:53,63 --> 01:10:00,13 a overview of how we objected journalism Independent News and also what an average 1024 01:10:00,14 --> 01:10:04,93 citizen could do to help the situation Bradley Manning Yeah yes 1025 01:10:05,69 --> 01:10:12,67 of the I think it's impossible to quantify how important Wiki Leaks has been to our 1026 01:10:12,68 --> 01:10:16,43 understanding of overt and covert actions that the U.S. 1027 01:10:16,44 --> 01:10:21,35 Has been engaged in and you know Bradley Manning is is 1028 01:10:21,36 --> 01:10:23,87 a guy who I think was motivated entirely by 1029 01:10:24,32 --> 01:10:29,55 a sense of conscience and and I think he was felt 1030 01:10:29,56 --> 01:10:31,93 a deep sense of outrage at what he was 1031 01:10:31,94 --> 01:10:37,15 a part of being in the middle. In Iraq. I didn't know this but but Bradley Manning 1032 01:10:37,16 --> 01:10:42,06 had emailed me before everything happened with him and it had nothing to with 1033 01:10:42,07 --> 01:10:46,23 classified information he tipped me off through some personal connections he had 1034 01:10:46,24 --> 01:10:49,77 not through any classified documents to the fact that Erik Prince the owner of 1035 01:10:49,78 --> 01:10:53,50 Blackwater was planning to leave the United States and move to Abu Dhabi and I had 1036 01:10:53,51 --> 01:10:57,07 no idea that it was manning I get emails all the time from people I don't know had 1037 01:10:57,08 --> 01:11:00,05 no idea that it was Bradley Manning that had originally given me this tip 1038 01:11:00,06 --> 01:11:00,60 Eventually I did 1039 01:11:00,61 --> 01:11:03,54 a story in The New York Times followed up on and it was one hundred percent true. 1040 01:11:04,70 --> 01:11:10,76 Until years later after Manning was already in Quantico and and somebody who was 1041 01:11:10,77 --> 01:11:11,14 working on 1042 01:11:11,15 --> 01:11:14,10 a book about him said I was reaching out to people who are in touch with Bradley 1043 01:11:14,11 --> 01:11:17,37 Manning I said I've never been in touch with Bradley Manning and he goes oh I was 1044 01:11:17,38 --> 01:11:20,48 told you were and I saw you were told wrong and he calls me back 1045 01:11:20,49 --> 01:11:23,14 a couple days later is like you know I really think that I'm right about this can 1046 01:11:23,15 --> 01:11:26,34 you search this e-mail address and sure enough there was an e-mail from Bradley 1047 01:11:26,35 --> 01:11:29,18 Manning and it wasn't a short e-mail it was 1048 01:11:29,19 --> 01:11:33,72 a very thoughtful e-mail from someone who seemed to be deeply concerned about the 1049 01:11:33,73 --> 01:11:38,42 idea that those who were involved with destroying Iraq or it with center part of 1050 01:11:38,43 --> 01:11:41,66 this these wars would would be able to flee justice at 1051 01:11:41,67 --> 01:11:43,44 a time Blackwater was being investigated in 1052 01:11:43,45 --> 01:11:47,32 a very intense way so you know what Bradley Manning did and he'll probably spend 1053 01:11:47,33 --> 01:11:50,70 a good portion of his life in prison bored Bradley Manning dead and now he's 1054 01:11:50,71 --> 01:11:56,65 admitted to it. Allowed us to have a small window open into 1055 01:11:56,66 --> 01:12:01,40 a very dark world of what's being done in our name and I think that you know had we 1056 01:12:01,41 --> 01:12:05,45 not had the Wiki Leaks leaked I don't know that my book would have been written or 1057 01:12:05,46 --> 01:12:09,38 that I would've been able to find in particular the warlords in Somalia because I 1058 01:12:09,39 --> 01:12:12,30 got their names out of the Wiki Leaks cables and then went to Mogadishu to find 1059 01:12:12,31 --> 01:12:19,18 them so the last thing that I'm happy to answer or talked in Rome. I 1060 01:12:20,07 --> 01:12:24,06 mean warden I was in Afghanistan from two thousand and seven and two thousand and 1061 01:12:24,07 --> 01:12:30,49 eight. And it's work that you Amy Chris you know did that keep me from reenlisting 1062 01:12:30,53 --> 01:12:35,100 So thanks for that. But also I want to thank have you elaborate 1063 01:12:36,04 --> 01:12:42,78 a little on like the cavalier and narcissistic attitude 1064 01:12:42,92 --> 01:12:48,40 that guys like Blackwater guys and special ops. You know. 1065 01:12:50,70 --> 01:12:53,52 These guys that are supposed to be the best of the best but 1066 01:12:53,84 --> 01:12:59,57 a lot of times the way that they operate it looks like they're inspired by Steven 1067 01:12:59,58 --> 01:13:06,12 Seagal or John Claude Van Dam or something. You know I think 1068 01:13:06,19 --> 01:13:12,97 they think what's interesting is the guys I know who are in the SEALs or. In the 1069 01:13:12,98 --> 01:13:16,22 actual military in Iraq I mean most of the Blackwater guys served at one point or 1070 01:13:16,23 --> 01:13:20,16 another in the military many of them served for a good long stint you know there's 1071 01:13:20,17 --> 01:13:23,65 a lot of thirty somethings that were working in those jobs and I think that you 1072 01:13:23,66 --> 01:13:25,13 know you get this sense that you are 1073 01:13:25,14 --> 01:13:28,87 a rock star of the war zone and that you're going to tell the Colonel what's what 1074 01:13:28,88 --> 01:13:31,26 because you're the big bad Blackwater guy in 1075 01:13:31,27 --> 01:13:34,63 a lot of times what happened with them is that they would you know do something 1076 01:13:34,64 --> 01:13:38,42 stupid and they would steal or criminal they'd shoot people they go night hunting 1077 01:13:38,43 --> 01:13:42,50 in their helicopters or they throw these booze in steroids parties and then they'd 1078 01:13:42,51 --> 01:13:43,30 end up going out on 1079 01:13:43,31 --> 01:13:47,52 a roid rage and killing people and who pays the price for that besides the Iraqis 1080 01:13:47,53 --> 01:13:51,46 are Afghans that are being killed oftentimes it's the kid in the Pennsylvania 1081 01:13:51,47 --> 01:13:56,53 National Guard who's then patrolling you know some awful fobbed somewhere or you 1082 01:13:56,54 --> 01:13:57,66 know happens to be on 1083 01:13:57,67 --> 01:14:01,45 a routine patrol and you know the guy whose family got killed by the Blackwater 1084 01:14:01,46 --> 01:14:04,62 guys he's not going to go and say well it's anyone know the address of the 1085 01:14:04,63 --> 01:14:07,75 Blackwater compound in Iraq is going to kill the first American to go after the 1086 01:14:07,76 --> 01:14:10,05 first American that he sees and you know the U.S. 1087 01:14:10,06 --> 01:14:13,37 Military is full of people that have those stories about that and it's not just 1088 01:14:13,38 --> 01:14:15,66 Blackwater that happens in the military to there's 1089 01:14:15,67 --> 01:14:19,95 a difference between you know murder and killing and people sometimes forget that 1090 01:14:19,96 --> 01:14:20,44 there's a heck of 1091 01:14:20,45 --> 01:14:25,28 a lot of murder that has taken place in in these war zones and you know there's 1092 01:14:25,29 --> 01:14:29,33 a great film by the way are films coming out this summer will be out June seventh 1093 01:14:29,34 --> 01:14:31,28 around the country but the there's 1094 01:14:31,29 --> 01:14:34,63 a film called the kill team that I think's going to be on P.B.S. 1095 01:14:34,64 --> 01:14:38,24 And this filmmaker Dan Krause made it and he's looking at the Stryker brigade in 1096 01:14:38,25 --> 01:14:40,33 these guys who were in 1097 01:14:40,34 --> 01:14:45,92 a very sick sick sadistic way going out and murdering Afghans U.S. 1098 01:14:45,93 --> 01:14:49,75 Military guys murdering Afghans and cutting fingers off and keeping them as 1099 01:14:49,76 --> 01:14:53,40 trophies and making necklaces out of them and they were doing it as sort of 1100 01:14:53,41 --> 01:14:58,30 a hazing ritual that this one captain is having his his men sort of be initiated to 1101 01:14:58,31 --> 01:15:01,94 the club by doing it so that I mean that the scale of murder that that took place 1102 01:15:01,95 --> 01:15:05,86 in Iraq and Afghanistan I think I don't know that will ever fully come to terms 1103 01:15:05,87 --> 01:15:09,85 with it and Blackwater certainly was an all star team of people engaged in just 1104 01:15:09,86 --> 01:15:14,59 wanton killing of people wanton killing of people. I mean it's it was awful and I 1105 01:15:14,60 --> 01:15:18,53 just I feel bad about the woman would ask the question before about the the drones 1106 01:15:18,54 --> 01:15:21,87 I think what she was getting and that's what I'll end on is you know is saying you 1107 01:15:21,88 --> 01:15:25,41 know what's your alternative if you don't want the drone strikes you know what what 1108 01:15:25,42 --> 01:15:28,20 are you saying that you're in favor of and oftentimes 1109 01:15:28,31 --> 01:15:32,43 a false choice is presented what would you rather have you know US invade and 1110 01:15:32,44 --> 01:15:37,77 occupy Yemen and I think it is of false choice but what I would say about it is 1111 01:15:37,78 --> 01:15:39,86 that if we stop being 1112 01:15:39,87 --> 01:15:45,36 a country that defends itself by the power of our principles or our values and we 1113 01:15:45,37 --> 01:15:46,85 stop having 1114 01:15:46,86 --> 01:15:51,84 a system where we allow people to face their accusers and face the evidence against 1115 01:15:51,85 --> 01:15:57,55 them then we should rewrite our laws to reflect the new values of our society if 1116 01:15:57,56 --> 01:15:59,98 someone is shooting at a U.S. 1117 01:15:59,99 --> 01:16:03,84 Soldier in a war zone that's different than someone engaged in 1118 01:16:03,85 --> 01:16:09,56 a plot in Yemen it just is it's different under the law but it's also different on 1119 01:16:09,57 --> 01:16:15,59 a moral level and we haven't even tried the route of indicting these people you 1120 01:16:15,60 --> 01:16:22,38 know how is it that that we're able to prosecute John Walker Lindh who took up 1121 01:16:22,39 --> 01:16:25,31 arms with the Taliban and that he was heaped he took 1122 01:16:25,32 --> 01:16:27,14 a plea but he would have been given access to 1123 01:16:27,15 --> 01:16:33,17 a civilian trial how is it that someone who engaged in that kind of activity in an 1124 01:16:33,18 --> 01:16:37,80 actual war zone was given access to the civilian court system but someone like 1125 01:16:37,81 --> 01:16:41,79 a Lockie who never had any evidence presented against him somehow is worthy of 1126 01:16:41,94 --> 01:16:43,85 being assassinated before being charged with 1127 01:16:43,86 --> 01:16:49,51 a crime I mean I the ticking time bomb is always presented as the scenario it was 1128 01:16:49,52 --> 01:16:53,86 while they tried to justify the torture and I just don't think that that is the 1129 01:16:53,87 --> 01:17:00,35 reality that we're often facing in the world and to me the. Potential for 1130 01:17:00,36 --> 01:17:05,83 a degradation of our national security is greater if we continue this program than 1131 01:17:05,84 --> 01:17:08,09 if we were to end it and take a step back and have 1132 01:17:08,10 --> 01:17:11,44 a more humble foreign policy I think it would lead to 1133 01:17:11,45 --> 01:17:15,29 a more secure nation for us so thank you.